The Little White Donkey: Le Petit Ane Blanc

by Jacques Ibertcopyright Alphonse LeDuc 1922A.L.16,512
9 3/4 x 12 1/8 inches, 4 pages
musical notation is in French
The Little White Donkey (Le petit âne blanc) is a piece for piano by the French composer Jacques Ibert.
It is the second piece from his suite of 10 pieces called Histoires, written in 1922, and is in the key of F-sharp major.
It was later orchestrated. It is frequently taught to children learning to play the piano, and is known for its staccato rhythm.--------------------------------Jacques François Antoine Ibert (15 August 1890 – 5 February 1962) was a French composer. Having studied music from an early age, he studied at the Paris Conservatoire and won its top prize, the Prix de Rome at his first attempt, despite studies interrupted by his service in World War I.
Ibert pursued a successful composing career, writing (sometimes in collaboration with other composers) seven operas, five ballets, incidental music for plays and films, songs, choral works, and chamber music. He is probably best remembered for his orchestral works including Divertissement (1930) and Escales (1922).
As a composer, Ibert did not attach himself to any of the prevalent genres of music of his time, and has been described as an eclectic. This is seen even in his best-known pieces: Divertissement, for small orchestra is lighthearted, even frivolous, and Escales (1922) is a ripely romantic work for large orchestra.
In tandem with his creative work, Ibert was the director of the Académie de France at the Villa Medici in Rome. During World War II he was proscribed by the pro-Nazi government in Paris, and for a time he went into exile in Switzerland. Restored to his former eminence in French musical life after the war, his final musical appointment was in charge of the Paris Opera and the Opéra-Comique.
Ibert refused to ally himself to any particular musical fashion or school, maintaining that "all systems are valid", a position that has caused many commentators to categorise him as "eclectic". His biographer, Alexandra Laederich, writes, "His music can be festive and gay … lyrical and inspired, or descriptive and evocative … often tinged with gentle humour…All the elements of his musical language bar that of harmony relate closely to the Classical tradition." The early orchestral works, such as Escales, are in "a lush Impressionist style", but Ibert is at least as well known for lighthearted, even frivolous, pieces, among which are the Divertissement for small orchestra and the Flute Concerto.
Ibert's stage works similarly embrace a wide variety of styles. His first opera, Persée et Andromède, is a concise, gently satirical piece. Angélique displays his "eclectic style and his accomplished writing of pastiche set pieces". Le roi d'Yvetot is written, in part in a simple folklike style. The opéra bouffe Gonzague is another essay in the old opera bouffe style. L'Aiglon, composed jointly with Honegger, employs commedia dell'arte characters and much musical pastiche in a style both accessible and sophisticated. For the farcical Les petites Cardinal the music is in set pieces in the manner of an operetta. By contrast Le chevalier errant, a choreographic piece incorporating chorus and two reciters, is in an epic style. Ibert's practice of collaborating with other composers extended to his works for the ballet stage. His first work composed expressly for the ballet was a waltz for L'éventail de Jeanne (1929) to which he was one of ten contributors, others of whom were Ravel and Poulenc. He was the sole composer of four further ballets between 1934 and 1954.
For the theatre and cinema, Ibert was a prolific composer of incidental music. His best-known theatre score was music for Eugéne Labiche's Un chapeau de paille d'Italie, which Ibert later reworked as the suite Divertissement. Other scores ranged from music for farce to that for Shakespeare productions. His cinema scores covered a similarly broad range. He wrote the music for more than a dozen French films, and for American directors he composed a score for Orson Welles's 1948 film of Macbeth, and the Circus ballet for Gene Kelly's Invitation to the Dance in 1952.