Quick Facts
- Le boeuf sur le toit pronunciation
- Ballet composed in 1919 in France and influenced by the composer’s recent time spent in Brazil
- “The Ox on the Roof” was the title of a popular Brazilian song at the time
- Premiered in 1920 at the Comédie des Champs-Élysées
About the Piece
- For the piece, Milhaud said he “assembled a few popular melodies, tangoed maxixes, sambas and a Portuguese fado, transcribing them with a rondo-like theme recurring between each successive pair.”
- Milhaud initially considered that the piece might accompany a Charlie Chaplin film, but that never came to fruition. The composer then mentioned the work to Jean Cocteau who quickly created a ballet scenario for the music. The ballet was so successful that a new nightclub opened soon after the premiere, also called “Le Bœuf sur le Toit.”
- Today, Le boeuf sur le toit is most commonly heard as a concert piece.
- Following the premiere of the ballet, Milhaud published several arrangements of the score, including for violin and orchestra, for violin and piano (to which Honegger contributed the cadenza), and for piano duet.1
Sources
- Robert Matthew-Walker, Notes in accompanying booklet, Music for two pianists performed by Stephen Coombs and Artur Pizarro, Hyperion 67014, 1998, compact disc.
Cut IDs
12395 14492