Milhaud, Darius - 4 Visages

A prolific and eclectic French composer, Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) left us an output marked in particular by polytonality and the mixed influences of his native Provence, jazz, South American folk music and his Jewish origins. His complex musical language can also be found in Quatre Visages for viola (1943), in which Milhaud makes use of harmonics, complex rhythms, ornamentation, altering time signatures and clefs, double stops and a wide tessitura, among other aspects.