Jacques Ibert

Entr’acte for Flute and Harp

A guide to the composer, the music and its interpretation

Entr’acte is one of Jacques Ibert’s most popular works for flute. It is a short, brilliant piece, full of rhythmic energy, elegance, colour and unmistakably Spanish character.
For the player, however, its apparent simplicity can be deceptive. Behind the sparkle is a very carefully constructed little work in which rhythm, articulation, colour, character and spontaneity all have to work together.
This guide is intended to help you not only play the notes, but understand what lies behind them.

Jacques Ibert – the man behind the music

Jacques Ibert was born in Paris on 15 August 1890.
Music was part of his life from the beginning. His mother was an accomplished amateur pianist and began teaching him when he was very young. Interestingly, Ibert showed an early preference for improvisation and invention rather than simply reproducing what was placed in front of him.
That instinct remained with him throughout his life.
As a young man, Ibert was fascinated not only by music but by theatre, literature, painting and the performing arts. He even studied acting for a time and considered becoming an actor. His interest in theatre never disappeared; instead, it became an important part of his musical career.
He entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1911, studying harmony with Émile Pessard, counterpoint and fugue with André Gédalge, and composition and orchestration with Paul Vidal. His fellow students included Arthur Honegger and Darius Milhaud.
His early working life was unusually varied. He taught, accompanied singers, wrote popular songs and dance music, and played piano in the cinemas of Montmartre, improvising music to accompany silent films.
That experience is important when thinking about Ibert’s music.
He understood movement, timing, atmosphere and dramatic action.
He knew how music could suggest a character, a gesture, a scene or a change of mood almost instantly.

War, Rome and a wider musical world

The First World War interrupted Ibert’s studies. He served first as a stretcher-bearer and medical orderly and later in the French Navy, receiving the Croix de Guerre.
In 1919, while still in uniform, he entered the Prix de Rome competition and won the Premier Grand Prix de Rome with his cantata Le Poète et la Fée.
The prize gave him three years at the Villa Médicis in Rome.
Those years were enormously important. Ibert travelled extensively around the Mediterranean, including Spain, the Balearic Islands, Sicily and Tunisia. Travel, landscape, different cultures and the sounds of different musical traditions all fed his imagination. His Escales, for example, reflects this fascination with Mediterranean colour and travel.
Ibert was never comfortable being placed inside a particular musical school.
He famously rejected the idea of composing according to a rigid system, saying:
“I hate the word ‘system’ and I don’t care about preconceived rules.”
For Ibert, technique was important — but it existed to serve music, expression, colour and communication.
That is a very useful idea for a player approaching Entr’acte.

What was Ibert passionate about musically?

Ibert’s musical interests were remarkably broad.
He loved:
• theatre and dramatic action
• dance and movement
• colour and instrumental texture
• humour and wit
• travel and different cultures
• Spanish music and literature
• the rhythmic vitality of popular music
• the possibilities of the cinema
• elegance and clarity
• and above all, freedom of musical expression
He wrote in almost every major genre: orchestral music, chamber music, opera, ballet, theatre music and film music. He eventually composed more than sixty film scores.
This makes Entr’acte much easier to understand.
It is not simply a pleasant French miniature.
It is theatre in miniature.
Something happens.
A character appears.
There is movement.
There is dance.
There is a change of mood.
There is a moment of freedom.
Then everything gathers momentum and disappears almost as quickly as it arrived.

Entr’acte – where does it come from?

Ibert composed Entr’acte in 1935 as part of his incidental music for Le médecin de son honneur (The Surgeon of His Honour), adapted by Alexandre Arnoux from the Spanish dramatist Pedro Calderón de la Barca.
The production was directed by Charles Dullin at the Théâtre de l’Atelier in Paris and opened on 8 February 1935.
The title Entr’acte simply means interlude — music performed between sections of a theatrical work.
The piece was subsequently published as a concert work for flute or violin with guitar or harp.
The Spanish setting and Calderón’s play provide an important background to the musical language.
Ibert does not attempt to reproduce Spanish music literally. Instead, he takes elements associated with Spanish and flamenco music — rhythmic vitality, dance gestures, guitar-like accompaniment, sudden changes of colour and a sense of improvisation — and turns them into his own French musical language.
That distinction is important.
This is Ibert imagining Spain, rather than a Spanish composer writing traditional flamenco.