Although Darius Milhaud’s listed compositions number 443, his reputation rests largely on a series of imaginative works written at the end of World War I and during the early 1920s. Le Boeuf sur le toit, a work of unusual melodic and rhythmic appeal and Latin-American overtones, was originally composed as background music for a silent film. The ballet L’Homme et son désir, for four wordless singers, solo wind, strings, and a vast percussion section, was seen for a time as the composer’s most radical and influential work. Scored for alto saxophone and 17 players, the jazzy ballet La Création du monde, was inspired by an American big-band and has long been the composer’s most played work.