Jacques IBERT (1890-1962)
Escales (Ports of Call) (1922) [15:03]
Sarabande pour Dulcinée (1933) [3:33]
Ouverture de fęte (1940) [13:28]
Féerique (1924) [6:46]
Divertissement (1930) [15:46]
Hommage ā Mozart (1956) [4:56]
Suite symphonique - Paris (1930) [13:22]
Bacchanale (1956) [8:22]
Orchestre de la Suisse Romande/Neeme Järvi
rec. 25-27 June 2015, Victoria Hall, Geneva, Switzerland
Reviewed as a 24/96 Studio Master from The
Classical Shop
Pdf booklet included
CHANDOS CHSA5168 SACD [81:06]
Given that the most recent of those recordings dates from
1996 it’s high time someone revisited this entertaining repertoire.
Are Järvi and the OSR up to the job? Rome-Palerme, the first leg
of Escales, a musical tour, has a shimmering, Faun-like
intro that’s attractively played and recorded. Järvi is brisker than
most thereafter; he’s not one to dawdle, as his recent recordings confirm,
and that makes his performances seem a little brusque at times. There’s
a hint of inflexibility too – the rhythms of Tunis-Nefta aren’t
as supple as they might be – and although his account of Valence
is arresting it could do with a touch of Iberian temperament.
Just to make sure I wasn’t being too harsh I switched to Dutoit, whose
programme is almost identical to Järvi's. The fizz and fun of those Montreal
performances, recorded in 1992, is a joy to hear; and while the Decca sound
isn’t as refined it has terrific blaze and brilliance. Back to Järvi,
and I have minor reservations about his response to the little Sarabande
pour Dulcinée, written for the 1933 film Don Quichotte. It may
be well played but it lacks charm. The recording, engineered by Ralph Couzens
and Jonathan Cooper, has ample weight and presence; that said, it's very analytical,
which adds a degree of coolness to the mix.
No qualms about the Ouverture de fęte, commissioned to celebrate
600 years of the Japanese empire. It’s a thrilling piece – what
a spine-tingling start – and the recording's fearless dynamics do it
full justice. However, Dutoit’s performance has a lift, a high-stepping
hauteur, that I don’t hear in Järvi's; that certainly
helps to minimise the music's incipient bluster. Järvi and the OSR
are equally robust in the ironically titled Féerique; the muscular
timps and cower-in-your-seat cymbal clashes are especially well caught. Despite
those felicities this is a reading to respect rather than to love.
That’s the nub of it; conductor and orchestra fit together like the
precisely machined cogs in a Swiss timepiece, and while that suits the straight
display pieces it doesn’t always work in the more elliptical ones. Take
the Divertissement, derived from the incidental music Ibert wrote
for the comedy Un Chapeau de paille d’Italie (The Italian Straw
Hat). Dutoit really understands the score’s essential frivolity, its
street music and its Satie-esque silliness. Järvi doesn’t quite capture
the feel and flavour of the first five movements, although he does find plenty
of scoot and skitter in the sixth; the players really seem to be enjoying
themselves at this point.
We take a few steps backwards with the Hommage ā Mozart, a French
Radio commission; as before it’s stylishly done, but for wit and sparkle
Dutoit and the OSM are hard to beat. Next up is the Symphonic Suite,
which Ibert adapted from his incidental music for the play Donogoo-Tonka.
Originally set in a fictional South-American country the subsequent suite
relocates to Paris. Dutoit is in his element here, revelling in the highly
evocative sights and sounds of the French capital. At moments like these one
realises just how much this repertoire benefits from a pinch of good humour
and a dash of spontaneity.
To be fair, Järvi is quite relaxed - even genial - in this piece. His Métro
has the requisite sway and clatter, the trumpet playing in Faubourgs
is superb and the quiet exoticism of La Mosquée de Paris is beautifully
judged. The jazzy Restaurant au Bois de Boulogne is a feast of good
tunes, and the climactic Parade Foraine has all the bounce and swagger
it needs. The recording handles the music’s dynamic swings with ease,
and there’s a thrilling heft to the sound that Decca engineers can’t
match.
Järvi and the OSR may have taken a while to warm up, but it was worth the
wait. The Bacchanale, commissioned to celebrate both the tenth anniversary
of the BBC’s Third Programme and the bicentenary of Mozart’s birth,
is one of Ibert’s most memorable creations. The debt to Saint-Saëns’s
potboiler is all too evident, but that’s just a small part of this good-natured
little number. And the transported playing of the OSR is proof that, despite
Orson Welles’ wry comment in The Third Man, Switzerland has
given us more than just the cuckoo clock.
Järvi doesn’t eclipse Dutoit, but he comes close; seriously good sonics.
Dan Morgan
twitter.com/mahlerei
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