Music I Like, #10, Scaramouche, Op. 165b by Darius Milhaud

Classical music has a reputation as elitist and inaccessible--and so it can sometimes be. But I also wish that people who felt that classical music isn't for them had the chance to engage with the tremendous variety of classical music that exists: there's such an abundance of genres and instruments. Some music is literally meant to tell stories, to respond to particular events, or evoke particular visual or natural phenomena. Compilations of 'easy listening' classics are a great gateway--and there is so much more to enjoy.

Here is one of the pieces I would share with someone who was curious to learn more about classical music. Scaramouche is a duet for two pianos. The French composer Darius Milhaud (1892-1974), composed this piece at the request of his piano teacher, who wanted something for her students to play at the 1937 International Dog Show in Paris. (This is one of those facts that raises Many Questions. I'm not able to answer them, but I swear I'm not making this up.)

The piano piece is actually a reworking of incidental music Milhaud and written for two plays, one of which featured characters from the theatrical tradition of commedia dell’arte, a form of European theatre in which the actors, playing stock characters, improvise a show. In the eighteenth century, French playwrights such as Molière started to write out parts for stock characters like Columbine and Pierrot and Harlequin--one of my favourite historical novels, Rafael Sabatini's Scaramouche, is centered around this change. As Maureen Buja writes about the character of Scaramouche:

[He] is a stock clown, serving sometimes as the servant and sometimes as the henchman. He usually appeared in black clothing and was often beaten by his master, Harlequin, both for his boasting and his cowardice.

Milhaud's piece seems to take its title from the place where the plays he was writing for were first performed, the Théâtre Scaramouche, but I think the commedia dell'arte character also factors in.

My twin sister and I played piano from the time we were six until when we graduated from college--as pianists of similar age and ability we played a lot of duets. So many duets. Milhaud's Scaramouche was one of them. I have a photo of us performing this piece inside my violin case--it was a joy to learn and a perform together.

Here's a recording by the pianists Martha Argerich and Evgeny Kissin.