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A Catholic poet and a Jewish composer
Sr. Isabelle. Marie

The major text of this number of Sidic tries to bring out the manner in which the Jews were presented by non-Jewish authors and the effect this had on the mentalities of Christians. It may also be interesting to note the reciprocal influence of a Catholic poet, Paul Claude], and a Jewish composer, Darius Milhaud.

The collaboration of these two artists, the traditional Catholic and the liberal Jew, inspired some facets of their work which are now considered noteworthy. Although Claudel shared the rather antisemitic ideas of his time, his contact with Milhaud, besides the events during the Second World War and personal experiences, helped him to change his mind considerably.
As Ambassador to Japan, Claudel had been much impressed by a group of actors whose theater role was to transform into musical rhythm the feelings of the audience. On his return to Europe he engaged the services of a young musician who admired him very much, Darius Milhaud, to help him realize his dream: "to compose music inspired by poetry, as poetry is born of prose and prose of interior silence and groanings-. Later, in addressing a group of students at Yale University, Claudel was to say: "Milhaud and I tried to show how the soul little by little arrives at musical phrases, how the thought springs from rhythm, the melody from words, poetry from the coarsest reality, and how all media of audible expression, from the most elementary speech, dialogue and debate to the full symphony of vocal, lyrical and orchestral riches, unite in one single torrent simultaneously diverse and uninterrupted".

As their friendship deepened a gradual change took place. In 1928 Claudel had written Milhaud "It's too bad you are not a Catholic. We could have done such grand things together'. And in 1930, in referring to the history of the Chosen People as basis for an oratorio, he had noted -You would have to be a Catholic to compose it for only a Catholic could realize the grandeur and pathetic poignancy of that sublime history". But later on that same year the Dreyfus Affair pro-yoked in him the following response: "Now truth becomes known with the blinding clarity of day, filling me with retrospective confusion". On hearing of the death of Milhaud's father in 1942, Claudel said to his friend, "It is one more drop of gall in the chalice which you and yours are obliged to drink at this moment".

As for Milhaud's sentiments he generally adapted to the wishes of his Catholic friend even to the point of composing melodies for a First Communion ceremony or to accompany the opening lines of an oratorio beginning "In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; it is he, Christopher Columbus, who united the Catholic world and made of it one globe under the cross".
These two men knew how to meet each other, surmounting obstacles which generally deterred others. We might see them, according to a Claudelian saying, as "two souls akin to Seraphs whose wings unite at the highest extremity".