MILHAUD Darius (1892-1974). MUSICAL MANUSCRIPT autograph signed "Darius Milhaud", Second Concerto for piano and orchestra (1941); 1 title page and 21 pages in fol. in a booklet (spine repaired with tape). Manuscript of the Second Piano Concerto, which Milhaud wrote to play himself. A refugee during the war in the United States, Milhaud composed in Oakland in April 1941, for his own use, his Second Piano Concerto, "which I had written at the request of my manager so that I would have a work that I could perform myself, that is to say the writing of a non-virtuoso composer" (Ma vie heureuse). "It does not present any technical difficulties. The music is simple, sensitive and eloquent" (Paul Collaer); "without virtuosity, it has a racy elegance, - which could have been inspired by a Scarlatti; one notices, during the inaugural movement, a second theme built on a fox-trott rhythm, - as well as the very poetic feeling of the Romance of the intermediate movement" (François-René Tranchefort). This is the composer's opus 225; it will be dedicated to his wife Madeleine Milhaud. Milhaud premiered it in Chicago on December 19, 1941, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hans Lange. It was published after the war by Heugel (the title page bears the ink stamp of the