Jean Derbes

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Apologies if I try your patience!

I've noticed Timpani (who usually don't produce anything less than worthwhile) have just issued a disc of the orchestral works of Jean Derbes. A name utterly unknown to me, and I'm always game to try new things.

A quick google doesn't reveal much - apart from that he was a French composer 1937-1982. And part of the Timpani blurb reads "...one of music's forgotten composers, whose output reveals a grand soul and a tortured spirit that died too soon". (Do souls die??)

Anyone know anything about him? Anyone listened to this CD (or an earlier one of a couple of years ago of the piano concerto)? I always want to support a distinguished record company that attempts a new venture. On the other hand I don't want to waste pennies on acquiring mere noise for such is freely available whenever I turn on the power tools to construct a new CD cabinet.

Forgotten he surely is. But deservedly so, or what? Any views?

Peter

[Alan Howe]

Try these excerpts here:

http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/Jean-Derbes-Nocturnes-Nr-1-2/hnum/6939105

Definitely not my cup of tea!

[Mark Thomas]

As my mother would say: "I'm sure it's very nice, if you like that sort of thing, dear."

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Hum, don't think I am too eager to pursue this one! Thanks for the responses. The trouble I have about the advice given by Mark's mother is that this was precisely what my mother said about Benjamin Britten. Thank gawd I was a teenage rebel and reacted against her advice!

Peter