Milhaud, La création du monde, op.81a

French composer Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) owes his ballet "La création du monde" (The Creation of the World) above all to the jazz music he had heard in the United States in 1922. It was first performed in Paris in 1923 with decors and costumes by the artist Fernand Léger. In 1976, Leonard Bernstein included this work on his two programs of predominantly French music with the Orchestre National de France - a stimulating blend of celebrated repertoire works as well as lesser known masterpieces from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Reviewing one of the concerts, David Stevens, the critic of the International Herald Tribune, wrote on 4 November 1976: "There are precious few conductors who can so completely identify themselves with the works of certain composers and at the same time occupy themselves with extracting total cooperation from such willful bodies of humanity as, say, a French orchestra. The miracle duly took place¿"