On today's date in 1937, some jaunty music by the French composer Darius Milhaud premiered in Paris. It was a suite for two pianos entitled "Scaramouche," after a stock character in the Italian commedia dell arte, an art form famous for thumbing its nose at authority. Its upbeat, carefree mood made "Scaramouche" an instant hit, much to the composer's surprise.

For his part, Milhaud was in an apprehensive mood that year. When he and his wife Madeleine had visited the 1937 Paris International Exposition, they saw premonitions of war reflected all-too clearly in many of its exhibits.

"Picasso's Guernica adorned the walls of the Spanish pavilion," recalled Milhaud, "but the Spanish Republic had been murdered. Placed face to face, the German and the Soviet pavilions seemed to challenge each other to mortal combat. One evening, as we watched the sun set behind the immense mass of flags of all nations, Madeleine clutched my arm in anguish and whispered 'This is the end of Europe!'"

In 1940, Milhaud was forced to leave France when the Germans occupied Paris. As a Jew, his music was promptly banned. But like Scaramouche himself, French musicians soon found ways of thumbing their noses at the unwelcome German authorities.

In 1943, two French pianists performed "Scaramouche" in concert, tricking the censors by listing its composer's name as "Hamid-al-Usurid"—a fictitious Arabic composer whose name just happens to be an anagram of "Darius Milhaud."