MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2023
Approaching 60,000 reviews
and more.. and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


 REVIEW
 BARGAIN OF THE MONTH


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

alternatively
CD: Crotchet AmazonUK AmazonUS


Jacques IBERT (1890-1962)
CD 1
Divertissement (1929) [14:25]
Symphonie Marine (1950s?) [13:56]
Bacchanale (1959) [8:20]
Louisville Concerto [11:18]
Bostoniana (1950s?) [6:53]
Flute Concerto (1934) [20:04]
CD 2
Ouverture de Fête (1942) [15:33]
Escales (1922) [15:27]
Tropismes pour des amours imaginaires (1950s?) [24:32]
Quatres Chansons de Don Quichotte (1932) [12:25]
Emmanuel Pahud (flute), José Van Dam (baritone)
City of Brmingham Symphony Orchestra/Louis Frémaux; Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich/David Zinman; Orchestre National de l'ORTF/Jean Martinon; Orchestre de l'Opéra de Lyon/Kent Nagano
rec. Great Hall, Birmingham University, 20-23 July 1973 (Divertissement); 20-21 August 1975 (other CBSO); 7-9 October 2002, Grosser Saal, Tonhalle, Zurich (Flute); Salle Wagram, Paris, 28-30 October, 7 November 1974. ADD/DDD
EMI CLASSICS GEMINI 5176392 [75:32 + 68:17]
Experience Classicsonline

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


 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.