Bacchanale

A bacchanal might seem an excessively boisterous way to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the BBC Third Programme. But Bacchanale – no less a drunken orgy in French than bacchanal in English ­– is the title given by Jacques Ibert to the work commissioned from him by the BBC to mark that occasion in 1956. Other composers offered more sober pieces: Boris Blacher, for example, wrote a Fantasy, Andrzej Panufnik a Rhapsody, Goffredo Petrassi an Invenzione concertata. Their French colleague seemed to believe, however, that the BBC Symphony Orchestra, which was to give the first performance, deserved something more festive.

What the BBC authorities were expecting from Ibert one can only speculate. His best-known work at the time was (as it still is) the riotously witty Divertissement drawn from incidental music he had written for Eugène Labiche’s comedy An Italian Straw Hat in 1929. He was not a member of Les Six but no one ever wrote a more appropriate tribute to Erik Satie than that. While, obviously, he had matured in the meantime, writing some very serious scores, he had never lost the traditional French virtues of well-defined melody, clear tonality, transparent textures and tidily organised structures. His most recent orchestal work, Louisville-concert, written for the Louisville Orchestra in Kentucky in 1953, must have been particularly encouraging. It celebrates the orchestral virtues brilliantly and entertainingly, not infrequently including popular allusions but never betraying the slightest hint of cheapness or triviality. The composer had clearly retained his sense of humour along with his impeccable technique.

If this was the kind of thing the BBC had in mind they cannot have been disappointed by Bacchanale. It is more concise than Louisville-concert, more disciplined in continuity, more symmetrical in structure and yet, to all appearances, no less spontaneous. It thrives throughout on the momentum generated in the Allegro vivace opening bars by the busy rhythmic ostinato on woodwind, strings and percussion. Against that the brass section, which makes its first entry with an explosive gesture on horns and trombones, projects a series of short, always syncopated motifs which are tossed about with ever increasing energy from instrument to instrument. Woodwind and strings have their share of the melodic action too before portentous trombones push them out of the way and the ostinato begins again.

Up to this point the festive element is very evidently present. But where is the drunken orgy? On the top of a dissonant climax a jazz-style trumpet solo slows down the tempo to introduce a middle section marked Nobile, con bravura and in that Elgarian manner the strings enter with a tune in a rolling dotted rhythm derived, surely, from the opening bars of the British composer’s Falstaff – an allusion Ibert would have expected his patrons to recognise while registering the alcohol content. The ostinato impulse is still there, however. Emerging from below the surface, it first encourages a short development of material from the Allegro vivace and then propels the orchestra into a full-scale recall of the opening section and, finally, a brief Molto allargando coda. ­

Gerald Larner