IBERT Escales. Divertissement. Symphonie marine. Orchestre des Concerts Lamoureux/Sado (Naxos) – INKPOT

IBERT Escales. Divertissement. Symphonie marine. Orchestre des Concerts Lamoureux/Sado (Naxos) – INKPOT

Issue 109This article was last updated on19 March, 2001

A Selection of Orchestral Rartities:

Jacques IBERT (1890-1962)

Bacchanale Divertissement Ouverture de fête Symphonie marine Escales

Orchestre des Concerts Lamoureux conducted by Yutaka Sado

NAXOS 8.554222 [71:20] budget-price

by Chia Han-Leon Jacques Ibert (right) was born in Paris, and during his heyday, formed a “Group of Three” with Arthur Honegger and Darius Milhaud, his younger (and now comparatively more famous I believe) contemporaries, to play music at his teacher’s house. Ibert is more famous among flutists, having written a plethora of scintillating works for the instrument.

What is most interesting about Ibert’s compositional facilities is his ability to write directly for orchestra without first testing the waters on a piano. If this is how he wrote the opening piece on this album, the raucous and rather Gershwinesque Bacchanale, I would see it in the very innate sense for orchestral colour, particularly the piquant combinations of tambourine, timpani, horns, strings – all blistering forward in foot-tapping syncopated rhythm for this exciting performance. In addition, the vibrant and confident piece is scored for large orchestra with a feast of triple woodwind – this is music to wake you up, as the title suggests; and for orchestras, the kind of thing to play at open-air occasions.

The main course in the disc is the Divertissement, completed in 1928. It is essentially a suite based on material from incidental music for Eugène Labiche’s UnChapuea de paille d’Italie (“An Italian Straw Hat”). Without any reference to the play, just by listening to the music one can easily conclude it must have be a comedy – before long there is already a cheeky quotation from Mendelssohn’s Wedding March, among other, um, musical subtleties and mischievious grins. The plot “deals with the unexpected events and misunderstandings experienced by a young man on his wedding-day, as he tries to recover a straw hat.”

The six individual movements include a carefree Cortège, a misty Nocturne with evocative parts for piano and tambourine, an amusing Valse which begins in the pain of off-key-ness and goes about dancing in a kind of half-dazed flutter. Last are a mysterious little Parade followed by a concluding chase through a police station (it seems; listen for the exasparated whistles) in the Finale.

The Ouverture de fête is a noisy 16-minute piece written in 1940 in Rome under a commission by the French government as a gift to Japan to mark the 2600th anniversary of the foundation of the Japanese empire. The score however, got lost and the work had to be rewritten. I think it shows: the result seems less focussed, with even a hint of frustration. The impression of the work does not quite equal the suggestion of the title (festive overture) – the performance on record here is just not as full of vitality as the Bacchanale, for example.

You may also find this album in this cover format:

The Symphonie marine (“sea symphony”) comes from the score for the short film S.O.S. Foch, by Jean Arroy. The cinematic/dramatic element is very strong, giving rise to sensations of rocking waves, tension, mystery and fog. though written in 1931, the title was given only in 1964 upon the score’s publication. Piano, saxophone, percussion and lots of atmospheric orchestral colour create a highly theatrical tone poem which fascinates from beginning to end, depicting the difficult rescue of the cargo ship Foch.

Escales is one of Ibert’s most popular works. Written in 1921-22, the title means “stopovers” or “ports of calls”. The three movements, totalling about 16 minutes, depict Rome-Palerme, Tunis-Nefta and Valencia. The music is by turns atmospheric and langorous, very Debussy-Ravelian, or vibrant and colourful. The “cultural flavour” of the music is naturally Mediterranean – the 3-minute Tunis is based entirely on a slowly unfolding Arabic theme, while Valencia doesn’t avoid castanets.

The performances by the Orchestre des Concerts Lamoureux (founded in 1881 by Charles Lamoureux) under Japanese conductor Yutaka Sado are altogether colourful, well-prepared, musical and sensitive. They adequately showcase Ibert’s remarkable orchestrational powers and obviously relish the music’s tints, hues, clashes and sweet tunes whenever these surface. I believe there are even better, perhaps more dynamic performances in the market, but for this price, explorers need not hesitate.

832: 7.2.2001 Chia Han-Leon

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