Winning Commissions & Losing

It sometimes happens that a commissioned work--even of a well-known composer--does not please the patron. But usually in such a case, the less said about it, the better; the patron either grits his teeth and holds a performance anyway, or he quietly shelves the work. Last week New Orleans Philharmonic Symphony Conductor Werner Torkanowsky broke this protocol by talking for the record about a commissioned work that he had rejected. And what made the case even more striking was the eminence of the composer: Darius Milhaud, 75, durable veteran of the historic Les Six group of French composers in the 1920s.

Milhaud had delivered Music for New Orleans, a 30-minute orchestral piece commissioned for last week's symphony concert in honor of the city's 250th anniversary. After studying it and rehearsing it, Conductor Torkanowsky pronounced it "a disappointment" and substituted Milhaud's 1923 composition,

La Creation du Monde, on the program. "As the greatest living French composer, Milhaud deserves to be represented in our concert only by his best work," Torkanowsky said in a public statement. "We do not propose to present him at what might be his worst." Furthermore, he said, the new work "would be a disappointment to the audience and to the spirit of the 250th anniversary."

If he was bothered by the rejection, Milhaud gave no sign. At his apartment in the heart of Paris' bouncy Pigalle district, he hardly had time to relax between chores. Besides busily attending rehearsals for the Paris Opera's revival of his 1938 opera Medee, he had just finished incidental music for the Paul Claudel play, L'Histoire de Tobie et de Sara, and was starting a new orchestral composition. Meantime, he was looking ahead to a batch of forthcoming performances of his works --including Musique pour Lisbonne, a chamber piece that he has composed especially for this spring's Gulbenkian Festival in that city. As for the New Orleans piece, Milhaud was plainly puzzled; Torkanowsky, he said, had told him only that the performance of it had been "delayed." When the composer heard about Torkanowsky's public statement, he merely snorted, "Silly!" --and went back to work.

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