Suite Française, Op. 248

• The themes in this suite are French folk tunes. Milhaud wrote this suite in 1944, while France was in the process of being liberated. Milhaud celebrated by adding folk tunes from various regions when each was newly liberated.¹
  • Milhaud, who was Jewish, spent the war years in America, carefully watching the situation in France.²
• Milhaud originally composed this suite for brass band: the publisher who commissioned it had asked for a piece suitable for school bands.³ Milhaud also created a version for orchestra, and created a ballet from the suite in 1945.⁴

Movements

1. Normandie  
2. Bretagne  
3. Île de France 
4. Alsace-Lorraine 
5. Provence⁵

1. Jeremy Drake, “Milhaud, Darius,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed July 14, 2021,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000018674. 
2. Jeremy Fletcher, liner notes to Sir Malcolm Arnold: The Return of Odysseus et al, The City of Glasgow Chorus, The Orchestra of the Scottish Opera, Graham Taylor, Divine Art 25035, CD, 2005. 
3. Ibid.
4. Drake, “Milhaud, Darius,” Grove Music Online
5. Fletcher, liner notes to Sir Malcolm Arnold: The Return of Odysseus et al.