Music & Politics 8, Number 2 (Summer 2014), ISSN 1938-7687. Article DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/mp.9460447.0008.204 Darius Milhaud’s Machines Agricoles as Post-Pastoral LOUIS K. EPSTEIN “Not a single critic understood what drove me to write these songs,” wrote Darius Milhaud of his song cycle Machines agricoles (1919). 1 Milhaud chose not to acknowledge that his critics’ confusion was largely justified. In Machines agricoles, the typical chamber orchestration and polytonality of Milhaud’s early works served as a setting for highly unusual texts: excerpts from a farm machinery catalogue. From its opening moments, Machines agricoles dares listeners not to laugh at its central conceit. As viola, clarinet, and flute present gentle, pentatonic melodies in different keys, the soprano earnestly sings the text, “The harvester is used particularly in places where the straw is of poor quality; it is a machine that, thanks to its broad blade, makes it possible to harvest twelve to fifteen hectares per day.” 2 Example 1: Milhaud’s Machines agricoles, beginning of first movement, “La Moissonneuse Espigadora.” Listen at : http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/mp.9460447.0008.204 Given Milhaud’s straight-faced setting for such an unusual text, it is easy to understand why the young composer was accused of “leg-pulling,” “intentional eccentricity,” and composing the piece “as if out of defiance.” 3 Machines agricoles quickly came to stand for Milhaud’s oeuvre and aesthetic as a whole, and not to his benefit. In a 1925 retrospective on Milhaud in La Revue musicale, Boris de Schloezer felt obliged to defend the piece, declaring, “Enough laughing about these machines!” 4 More recently, scholars have referred to Machines agricoles as a “hoax” and characterized it as an exercise in musical irony, citing the “mismatch” between text and music, or the “incongruous,” “Dadaist” juxtaposition of the mundane 1 Darius Milhaud, Ma Vie heureuse (Paris: Belfond, 1973), 104. “Aucun critique ne comprit ce qui m’avait poussé à écrire ces oeuvres.” All translations are my own unless otherwise noted. An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2013 annual meeting of the Society for French Historical Studies as part of the panel “Nature and Technology in Early Twentieth- Century French Music.” I am grateful to Noel Verzosa, Samuel Dorf, Colin Roust, and Leslie Sprout for their comments during the panel, and I am particularly grateful to Noel Verzosa and Christopher Moore for sharing unpublished conference papers that informed my thinking about Machines agricoles. Thanks go to Luke Simonson for transcribing the score examples. Finally, I would like to thank Sindhu Revuluri, Matthew Mugmon, Tyler Kinnear, Eric Drott, and the anonymous readers for their helpful feedback throughout various stages of this project. 2 Milhaud, Machines Agricoles (Vienna: Universal Edition, 1926), 3–5. “La moissonneuse espigadora est employée surtout dans les pays où la paille n’a pas grande valeur; c’est une machine qui grâce à sa grande coupe permet de faire de douze à quinze hectares par jour.” 3 Milhaud reported these criticisms in his autobiography, writing, “Chaque fois que l’on voulut prouver mon gout accentué pour la fumisterie [fraud] et l’excentricité, on cita les Machines agricoles” (Ma Vie Heureuse, 105). For evidence that Milhaud’s later reputation rested largely on the initial reception if Machines agricoles, see Réné Dumesnil, La Musique en France entre les deux guerres, 1918–1939 (Paris: Editions du Milieu du Monde, 1946), 174. 4 Boris de Schloezer, “Darius Milhaud,” La Revue musicale 6, no. 5 (March 1, 1925): 251–76, reprinted in Boris de Schloezer, Comprendre la musique: Contributions à La Nouvelle revue française et à La Revue musicale (1921–1956), ed. Timothée Picard (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2011), 299.