Listeners can't help but chuckle at the very idea of Milhaud's settings of descriptions from a catalog of farm machinery. What is one to make of the composer's attraction to text such as ". . . the combination plough-seeder-trencher has stanchions and certain reinforcements so that it can bear the weight of the seed-box. . . ."?

The evident humor of Farm Machinery is coupled with the more bucolic suggestions of its subtitle, "Pastorale." The seemingly prosaic language of the songs has a poetic subtext that extols the serenity of farming life and the fertility of the earth. Milhaud's settings are rich and contrapuntally profuse, suggesting images of fields at planting and harvesting times.

In the following year Milhaud wrote a similar cycle, Catalogue de fleurs (Seed Catalogue) for voice and piano. In 1932 he orchestrated this cycle for Farm Machinery's same seven-piece ensemble, making it an apt companion piece to the present work.

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