JACQUES IBERT (1890-1962): Le Chevalier errant, Les Amours de Jupiter (World Premiere Recordings).

Description: Each of these works is a bit under half an hour in length, Le Chevalier being a suite (roughly two-thirds of the original score which also called for two reciters and a large and very busy chorus) taken from a 1935 Don Quixote ballet. Ibert doesn't lay on the Spanish music thickly; this is a score still rather late romantic in style and is not comedic, the knight's portrait that of his ideals rather than his actions. Les Amours is a complete ballet from 1945 which is a brilliantly orchestrated, all but-"concerto for orchestra" with four panels of seduction: Leda, Europa, Ganymede and Danaë with a final scene of Jupiter's reconciliation with Juno. Orchestral color is captivating whether the music flirts with Hollywood film scores, neo-classicism or, in Jupiter-as-eagle's pas de deux with Ganymede, blues. Orchestre National de Lorraine; Jacques Mercier.