This munificent collection has the air of a challenge thrown
down with all the panache that comes of knowing that no-one else
can match it. It's the sort of thing you can do when you are
EMI. The competition just don't have the catalogue depth to match
it. OK so they might have a few more recent recordings but in
terms of still very good sounding analogue this is the business
and at superbudget price.
Ibert had his frivolous ’twenties moments but for the rest
he is a pleasing melodist with a fastidious and effective ear
for orchestral effect.
I have known most of these recordings from having started exploring
Ibert on LP during the period 1971-78. The covers of those albums
are engraved in my memory.
His
Divertissement is drawn from his incidental
music for a production of a Goldoni play
The Italian Straw
Hat. It is an excuse for a brilliant weave of parody and
display. The echoes here are largely of absurdist Satie, of Ravel's
Ma
Mère l'Oye in
Cortege, of Prokofiev in parade
and in the
tempo di galop of the then 'madmen' of music
such as Antheil, Ornstein and Cowell. Frémaux and the
CBSO give this work a rowdy outing.
The
Symphonie Marine was not played during Ibert’s
life and only achieved performance one year after his death.
There is no swelling oceanic sweep here; sketched in suggestions
are the order of the day. It's a work that in its freshness and
intricacy of detail fascinates. The supercharged whooping cascading
effusions of
Bacchanale are bound to impress but
don't I recall another even more animalistic recording by Bernstein
and the L'ORTF also on EMI? Written for the tenth anniversary
of the BBC Third Programme, it's a superb riotous showpiece;
rather the equivalent of Szymanowski's early
Concert Overture and
the first movement of Enescu's First Symphony.
Like the
Symphonie
Marine solo lines emerge repeatedly in the almost equally
exuberant
Louisville Concerto - so designated despite
running only to concert overture length. It's clearly another
successful artefact of Louisville's philanthropic scheme to put
the city on the cultural map internationally - which the scheme
did. Such a pity that First Edition CDs are no longer around
to perpetuate the legacy.
Rather predictably the active and restless
Bostoniana was
a Charles Munch Tanglewood commission - in fact what they asked
for was a symphony. Ibert died before going any further than
this single movement which at times finds echo in Hindemith's
big symphonies. The
Tropismes was also not performed
until after Ibert's death. It is in nine sections though here
inconveniently in a single 25 minute track. It might have been
intended as a ballet. The big piercingly searching and surging
string writing of
Bostoniana is also on show here but
with a sultry swooning harmonic world which takes Ibert one romantically
fevered pace towards Scriabin. It ends with a sequence of piled
high superheated grandiloquent fanfares.
The
Flute Concerto was
written for Marcel Moyse and is flighty, suave and cool with
a wondrously tender
Andante and with an unusually long
and brusque
Allegro scherzando which seems to look back
to the absurdist uproar of
Divertissement. Like Britten's
Sinfonia
da Requiem (and which other works I wonder?)
Ouverture
de Fetes was written for the 2500th anniversary of the Mikado's
dynasty in Japan. It was premiered in 1942 having weathered the
backwash from Japan's part in the war. It includes a fugal episode
and is quite a weighty effort running to more than fifteen active
and celebratory minutes. Nothing struck me as especially oriental
about it.
Back to more familiar waters with the superlative suite
Escales (
Ports
of Call). It is a most audacious and achieved series of pictures
of the cultures looking out or from the Mediterranean littoral.
These are lovely recordings with some truly beautiful impressionistic
writing. While
Divertissement bids fair to be his most
instantly recognisable piece this is the one that deserves concert
hall attention. The
Tunis movement recalls Holst's
Beni
Mora in its evocation of the shadowed streets of the old
city. The final
Valencia is eager and bright with excitement
and tickles the ear with some wonderful distanced Hispanic effects
including the castanets and tambourines as well as the rapturously
explosive
Rhapsodie Espagnole style whoops in the final
few moments.
The
Don Quichotte songs have a related
Iberian resonance. The songs are to words (not in the booklet)
by Ronsard and Arnoux. The words are delivered with pleasing
clarity so some French speakers should be able to follow the
plot easily enough. The orchestral contribution is spare and
well judged with guitar, harp, harpsichord, bassoon and oboe
playing leading parts in establishing the Iberian milieu. But
then we know from the
Valencia movement of
Escales that
Ibert had all the right Spanish credentials. Well worth exploring
if you have a predilection for economically scored and colour-soaked
Hispanica.
A good concise note by Richard Langham Smith.
Interested in Ibert? Sorted.
Rob Barnett
see also review by Hubert Culot
Emmanuel Pahud (flute), José Van
Dam (baritone)
