STYLE OF DIVERTJSSEMENT

General
Since its :first performance in (1929), Ibert's Divertissement for chamber orchestra has been one
off his most frequently-played works. It began its life as the incidental music for a play, Un
chapeau de paille d'Italie (“An Italian straw hat”), a comedy which was popular long before Ibert
wrote the music. Ibert loved the theatre, and had a great flair for writing film and theatrical music.
The style is light, entertaining and humorous, requiring no great musical knowledge in the listener
to enjoy it. The music is fast-paced and ever-changing; it maintains the listener's interest more by
piling on new ideas than by developing existing material. Its sophisticated, witty, polished style,
with its references to fashionable city life and popular culture, makes it typical of the French
musical ideals of the period.

Form: As a concert piece, the work was modelled on the classical-period Divertimento, as its name
suggests. It is a kind of orchestral suite, a series of short movements contrasting in mood and
tempo, aimed more at being entertaining than at expressing great ideas.

There are six movements:

- a brief, lively Introduction:
- a more substantial movement, Cortège, which suggests a procession passing by;
- a gentle, soft, and misty little Nocturne ("night piece");
- a lively dance movement, the Valse (Waltz)
- the cheeky, amusing Parade in march style;
- a hilarious, frantic Finale. \,.

Rhythm: Much music of the period shows the influence of jazz and ethnic music. Ibert seems
here not much interested in the exotic sounds and patterns of Spanish, South American or Oriental
music which delighted his-contemporaries, but one can trace some indirect influence of jazz.

In the 1920s, the American jazz which filtered through to Europe was in a rather early stage of
development:
• ragtime piano (referred tom Debussy's "Golliwogg's Cakewalk") was known through the
works of Scott Joplin.: ... composing in a distinctively syncopated rhythm but still mainly
within the form, tonality and style of European light piano music
• what eventually became adapted into the "Dixieland" jazz style derived from the street
bands of the deep South, where African-American musicians played their own syncopated
versions of European march tunes etc.

Both these elements are present in the dance music of the 1920s, which feature a steady four-square
basic rhythmic pulse but bright, infectiously syncopated melodies and a brassy instrumental sound.

The more authentic African-American style of blues, with its flexible, highly syncopated rhythm
and subtle, mode-like scales, was still a little-known folk music and was yet to make a significant
mark on popular culture and dance music in America and Europe.

The Divertissement shows some rhythmic influence of the jazz elements which had affected
European light music: somewhat syncopated melody-lines, as in Cortege tune (A), Introduction tune
(A), and Nocturne Tune (A). The syncopation of the Valse tune (B) is, however, derived from the
Viennese waltz of the 19th century, unrelated to jazz. The clarinet melody in the Cortege (tune-(E))
is quite forward-looking and jazzy in style. Its sinuous, chromatic, syncopated melody and "wah-
wah" accompanying figure almost seem to hint at the next phase in the development of American
jazz, the urban big bands of the 1930s with their virtuoso soloists.

The rhythmic interest and vitality of the Divertissement is largely due to the shifting time signatures
and tempos, and the humorous portrayal of well-known rhythmic patterns such as the lively,
swirling Valse, the hectic Galop in the Finale, and the foot-tapping march-like tunes in the Cortege
and the Parade. These rhythms are emphasised to the point of parody by their heavily accented
vamped accompaniments.

Texture: This is a very "busy" piece for the most part, with few resting places for the players. More
light-textured passages include the introductions to the Cortège and the Parade, and the Nocturne.
The piano part is dense, rapid and difficult, and contributes greatly to the fullness of the texture.
The basic approach to texture here is that of melody and accompaniment, as in the Classical period
and in popular/light music of any period. Ibert often sets up an accompanying figure first and
introduces a prominent melody over it later, as in the Valse, tune (A). He also uses a kind of "Call-
response" effect between sections of the orchestra – as in the Introduction tune (B), the alternating
bursts of the driving bass figure and the flute and strings' "reply". The tunes are often re-played with
a different combination of instruments. For example, in the Cortege, the big tune (A) appears first
on trumpet accompanied by bassoon and clarinet, then later more forcefully with the tune in upper
woodwinds and strings plus piano, accompanied by brass, bassoon and double bass. When tunes are
repeated, Ibert sometimes intensifies the effect by thickening the texture with ornamental "fillers".
In the Valse, the last repetition of tune (A) is decorated with rising flourishes in the woodwinds and
strings and a trombone commentary during the longer melody notes . These features also appear in
lighter music and jazz of the period.

There are also some brief passages of almost contrapuntal writing, where two melodic lines are
interwoven:
• The Cortege tune (D) for trumpet and flute has a trombone countermelody;
• The Nocturne melody is briefly developed in a contrapuntal style at section (A2);
• Tune (C) in the Finale has several countermelodies, in the style of a street band performance
Yet overall, part-writing is not nearly as prominent in. this work as in the writing of some of Ibert's
contemporaries, with their starkly neoclassical style paying conscious homage to the great baroque
and classical composers.

Harmony: Ibert shows a wide variety of approaches to harmony and tonality in his composition;
however, the harmonic language is overall clearly tonal in most of the work. Ibert is not attempting
to push the boundaries of musical experimentation here, just to have fun and entertain. Although he
writes without a key signature and adds accidentals as required, most of the music is closely tied to
a recognisable key. In some places the entire harmonisation is perfectly traditional, containing no
sounds that would have surprised an eighteenth-century listener; yet this in itself is Ibert's way of
portraying the simple style of an amateur band, as in the Parade tunes (B) and (C).

Ibert shows his twentieth-century loyalties in his rapid successions of abrupt key-changes, often to
unpredictable keys. In the Introduction, the clear D major tonality of tune (A) suddenly at tune (B)
rushes through A major, C major, E major within a few bars, the unison "call" figure being answered
by only remotely-related arpeggios and chromatic figures on the flute. Even when the overall key
centre is comfortably tonal, he often uses quite sharply dissonant notes within the accompaniments,
giving a contemporary, spicy edge to the sound. The piano part is largely composed of highly
dissonant clusters of notes, and is quite a contrast to the naively tonal flavour of the more prominent
melodies – suggesting the music of more “serious” composers such as Bartok.

However, in the introduction to the Cortege, Ibert moves well away from predictable sounds - the
listener remains uncertain about the tonal centre, and even though it appears to settle down towards
D flat major, the final chord contains D flat, D, E, F, A flat and B. (The D flat tonality is clearly
established when the next section begins). Similarly, in the Nocturne Ibert produces dark, misty
sonorities with a chromatic melody line. The sound of this movement – its ambiguous tonality and
departure from the regular major/minor scale system – is rather like Debussy's impressionist work.

Overall, Ibert shows the versatility and individuality of his musical style by the wide range of
harmonic flavours – ranging from traditionally tonal and concordant sounds (paying homage to
previous musical fashions and to popular music styles) to quite avant-garde and experimental sounds.