Bridge String Quartet - J. Ibert: Chamber Music (2014)

Ibert, who is best known to us for his delightful orchestral Divertissement, was a prolific composer of seven operas, five ballets, choral works, instrumental and chamber music as well as much incidental music for plays and films, which included Gene Kelly’s Invitation to the Dance in 1954. Having studied at the Paris Conservatoire and winning its top prize, the Prix de Rome, (the most famous of his Conservatoire teachers was Gabriel Fauré), he pursued a successful career as a composer of music that retained essentially Gallic strains: a lightness of touch, a certain humorous quality, a finished compositional technique, and genuine melodic gift.