After distinguished naval service in the First World War – winning the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honour[1] – Jacques Ibert resumed his interrupted musical career.
Students were required to submit their new compositions to the Paris Conservatoire; Ibert's first submission from Rome was La Ballade de la Geôle de Reading a sombre orchestral piece inspired by Oscar Wilde's poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol.
[3] In February 1921 the Iberts took a more extended sea trip, calling at various Mediterranean ports, before taking up residence in Rome.
[5]The first performance of Escales was given on 6 January 1924 at the Salle Pleyel in Paris by the Lamoureux Orchestra conducted by Paul Paray.
[...] His new work shows him to be master of his form, although the poet, the visionary that he has certainly remained, sometimes hides beneath the learned constructions that he has usefully practised here.
After the British premiere, under Hamilton Harty, the reviewer in The Musical Times compared Ibert unfavourably with Joaquín Turina and Ottorino Respighi; after the Italian premiere a critic commented on the three movements, "They did not evoke admiration, the material used in their construction lacking both in invention and development – shortcomings that brilliance in orchestration did not compensate".
[7] Nevertheless, such was the general popularity of the piece that Ibert later complained mildly that it was overshadowing his subsequent compositions: "I have written twenty works since Escales, but ..."[8] The full score was published in 1924.
[12] An ostinato accompaniment of the strings and timpani, with the oboe melody marked doux et mélancolique (soft and melancholy), evokes the Middle East.
An uneven seven-beat pulse is sustained by strings both plucked (pizzicato) and tapped with the wood of the bow (avec le dos de l'archet).
[13] Generations of French composers, including Lalo, Bizet, Chabrier, Debussy and Ravel had been fascinated by Spain and depicted it in their music.
The blazing colours with which the movement opens, the sinuous rhythms of its quieter bars, the mounting excitement and the fiery finish are all in this established tradition.