Le Carnaval d'Aix/Le boeuf sur le toit - Robertson/Nagano (1998)

Over CD2: "Kent Nagano and the Lyon Opera Orchestra know exactly what they are doing with Le boeuf sur le toit, and Milhaud's ballet, written for Cocteau in 1919 and set in an American bar during the Prohibition, comes up wonderfully fresh. (...) La creation du monde (1923) was among the first twentieth-century works by a western composer to take its inspiration from African folklore, and it still comes up strongly with its powerful use of jazz. However, this is not the sophisticated white kind but the raw black New Orleans idiom that Milhaud had recently heard on a visit to the USA. (...) The Harp Concerto, written in the USA in 1953 for Nicanor Zabaleta, is one of no less than 25 concertos that this prolific composer produced between 1927 and 1964". (gramophone.co.uk)