Jacques Ibert

His father was a successful businessman, and his mother a talented pianist who had studied with Antoine François Marmontel and encouraged the young Ibert's musical interests.

From the age of four, he began studying music, first learning the violin and then the piano from his mother, despite his father's wishes that his son would follow in his business profession.

He also started composing songs, sometimes under the pen name William Berty, and helped his father's business, which had suffered a financial setback.

In 1910, Ibert became a student at the Paris Conservatoire, studying with Émile Pessard (harmony), André Gedalge (counterpoint) and Paul Vidal (composition).

In the course of these, Ibert composed his first opera, Persée et Andromède (1921), to a libretto by his brother-in-law, the author Michel Veber, writing under the pen name "Nino".

His publisher Alphonse Leduc commissioned two collections of piano music from him, Histoires and Les Rencontres, which enhanced his popularity.

Ibert, with the enthusiastic support of his wife "threw himself wholeheartedly into his administrative role and proved an excellent ambassador of French culture in Italy.

Ibert refused to ally himself to any particular musical fashion or school, maintaining that "all systems are valid", a position that has caused many commentators to categorise him as "eclectic".

"[2] The early orchestral works, such as Escales, are in "a lush Impressionist style",[5] but Ibert is at least as well known for lighthearted, even frivolous, pieces, among which are the Divertissement for small orchestra and the Flute Concerto.

L'Aiglon, composed jointly with Honegger, employs commedia dell'arte characters and much musical pastiche in a style both accessible and sophisticated.

His best-known theatre score was music for Eugène Labiche's Un chapeau de paille d'Italie, which Ibert later reworked as the suite Divertissement.