The sarabande, based on a 7-beat structure, throws off the rhythm due to its uneven number of beats. Two old-fashion dances, the sarabande and the gagliarde, provide the organizational thread. The second part is one of madness and fear, beginning with shivering strings. Ibert: La Ballade de la Geôle de Reading : Part 1 (Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra Adriano – Conductor)

An urgent motif enters, representing the murderer and his memories. Ibert composed the work in three parts, beginning first with the prison and its prisoners. The first production was an unexpected success. Ibert was responding to Wilde’s message to humanity, setting the story of a man who had murdered his wife against the background of the difficult prison atmosphere.

In 1937, it was recast as a ballet and given its première at the Opéra Comique. In 1922, Jacques Ibert finished composition on his symphonic poem La Ballade de la Geôle de Reading. Jacques IbertThe most significant setting of this poem in music doesn’t actually set the poem. (although, if you had purchased the signed third edition, you knew very well who the author was). It wasn’t until the 7th edition, which appeared 16 months after the first edition, that Wilde’s name was added below C.3.3. The third edition, of 99 numbered copies ‘signed by the author’ was issued along with a fourth edition of 1,200 unsigned set. The first edition, issued on 13 February 1889, of 800 copies sold out in a week the second edition of 1000 copies sold just as quickly.

The poem, due to Wilde’s notoriety, could not be issued under his name. The author was given simply as C.3.3., which stood for cell block C, landing 3, cell 3, Wilde’s cell. His stories and plays have a constant following The Importance of Being Ernest is once again on the London stage this season, but now, as has become the model, with Lady Bracknell being played, as the reverse of a trouser role, by David Suchet.Īt the time of his sentencing, Wilde was placed in Reading Prison, and after he had moved to France, the anonymous poem “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” was printed. Oscar WIldeOscar Wilde, master of the killing bon mot and martyr of Victorian sexuality, isn’t often thought of in terms of music.

The ballad of gaol