Delibes: Ballet Suites

Description

Neeme Järvi returns to the Royal Scottish National Orchestra for a dazzling album of suites from the ballets Sylvia, La Source, and Coppélia by Delibes. Born into a family of musicians, Delibes enrolled at the Paris Conservatory at the age of twelve and studied under several teachers, including Adolphe Adam. He spent the 1850s and early 1860s composing light operettas and working as a church organist before gaining public recognition for his ballet music in La Source in 1866. His later ballets, Coppélia and Sylvia, were key works in the development of modern ballet, giving music a much greater importance than before. Typical of this period, the plots of these ballets are obscure, convoluted, and complex, but it is certainly Delibes' talent for lyrical melody and the musical expression of a state of mind or feeling that elevates these three scores above their contemporaries — indeed, Coppélia has become the most frequently performed ballet at the Opéra de Paris. Delibes was at the forefront of creating orchestral suites from his ballet music (which Tchaikovsky, among others, envied), and it is therefore indeed considered to perform them without staging or dancers. On this album, Neeme Järvi adds several additional movements to develop the suites that emerged during Delibes' lifetime.