Divertissement

Cortège

Parade

Finale

Although he was not himself a member of the trendy group of Parisian composers known as the “les Six,” Ibert had studied at the Conservatoire alongside some of those who were and could write at least as wittily and as stylishly as any of them if the occasion seemed appropriate. One such occasion was the opportunity to write the incidental music for a revival of Eugène Labiche’s comedy Un Chapeau de paille d’Italie (An Italian Straw Hat) in 1929. Inspired not only by the music of his young contemporaries but also by Satie’s Parade - the ballet that had so sensationally anticipated the new irreverence in 1917 - the score is a classic of its kind. It is no less entertaining in the concert hall as a Divertissement for small orchestra (from which three movements have been selected for today’s performance) than in its original context in the theatre.

Like his colleagues, Ibert enjoyed parody - such as the very subtle reference to The Rite of Spring on violas and pizzicato cellos towards the end of the slow opening section of Cortège and the outrageous travesty of Mendelssohn in the middle of a movement generally abundant in musical burlesque. A clear tribute to Satie, Parade is a tuneful and crudely contrapuntal march that makes its modest entry on trudging feet and its exit the same way. The identity of the modernist colleague satirised in the clangourous piano cadenza at the beginning of the Finale is uncertain but the hectic can-can that follows is as characteristic of its time and place as it is irresistible in its naughtiness. Whether it is really sinful enough to justify the intervention of noisy police whistles is another question.

Introduction

Cortège

Nocturne

Valse

Parade

Finale

Writing music like that wasn’t just fun either. Thanks to the publicity generated by Jean Cocteau, the thinker and impresario behind the new movement, it was also aesthetically correct. So, while there was a group of young composers specially associated with Cocteau - the so-called “Groupe des Six” including Milhaud, Honegger and Poulenc - they were not the only ones interested in his refreshingly progressive ideas. The most accomplished of the outsiders was Jacques Ibert, who had studied at the Conservatoire alongside Honegger and Milhaud and who could write at least as stylishly as any of them if the occasion seemed appropriate.

One such occasion was the opportunity to write the incidental music for a revival of Eugène Labiche’s comedy Un Chapeau de paille d’Italie (An Italian Straw Hat) in 1929. Inspired not only by the music of his young contemporaries but also by Satie’s Parade - the ballet that had so sensationally anticipated the new irreverence in 1917 - the score is a classic of its kind. It is no less entertaining in the concert hall, as a Divertissement for small orchestra, than in its original context in the theatre. The cheerful Introduction is characteristic of the dry but brilliant sound Ibert produces from his ensemble (with just a few strings and piano alongside single wind and percussion) and his witty use of dissonance. Like his colleagues, he enjoyed parody too - such as the very subtle reference to The Rite of Spring on violas and pizzicato cellos towards the end of the slow opening section of Cortège and the outrageous travesty of Mendelssohn in the middle of a movement generally abundant in musical burlesque.

While it is tempting but perhaps not quite fair to suggest that the poetically scored Nocturne is a discreet allusion to the newly emerging twelve-note tendency in the Vienna of the day, there is absolutely no doubt that the Vienna of the day before is the subject of Ibert’s increasingly satirical attention in the succeeding Valse. Where the Parade comes from, as it prepares for its crudely contrapuntal march-past, is as mysterious as where it disappears to. In the end, however, we are back in Paris. The identity of the modernist colleague who inspired the clangourous piano cadenza at the beginning of the Finale might be uncertain but the hectic can-can that follows is as characteristic of its time and place as it is irresistible in its naughtiness. Whether it is really sinful enough to justify the intervention of noisy police whistles is another question.