Vincent d'Indy - Orchestral Works Vol. 5 (Rumon Gamba)

Information

Composer: Vincent d'Indy

• Symphonie sur un chant montagnard français, Op. 25
• Fervaal, opera, Op. 40: Prelude to Act I
• Saugefleurie, Op. 21
• Médée, Op. 47

Louis Lortie, piano

Iceland Symphony Orchestra

Rumon Gamba, conductor

Date: 2012

Label: Chandos

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Review

The Iceland Symphony Orchestra’s invaluable survey of d’Indy’s orchestral scores here reaches Vol 5 and one of those few works that keep his name alive, albeit only just. The Symphonie sur un chant montagnard français is a typical, and beguiling, example of the way d’Indy managed to mix the formal discipline that he inherited from César Franck with the imagery of nature that proved to be a fertile source of inspiration. The symphony was completed in 1886, two years before Franck’s in D minor, but the central slow movement attests to d’Indy’s debt to his mentor in certain melodic and harmonic procedures, as does the cyclic treatment of material in the symphony as a whole. But d’Indy is his own man, conjuring up fragrant atmosphere from his mountain theme and generating a good deal of healthy vigour in the finale. All this is potently communicated by the orchestral playing and by Louis Lortie’s scintillating fluency in the piano obbligato.

The hushed prelude to the opera Fervaal shows that he was no less susceptible to the influence of Wagner than were other composers of his generation (think Parsifal), and the symphonic poem Saugefleurie indicates that he knew The Ring and Tristan, as do the serpentine harmonies and rich orchestral textures in parts of the suite Médée, drawn from incidental music for Catulle Mendès’s play. But d’Indy brings to it an individual accent, which these performances interpret purposefully and with a vital romantic sweep.

— Geoffrey Norris

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Vincent d'Indy (27 March 1851 – 2 December 1931) was a French composer and teacher, who sought to reform French music through the influence of César Franck and the Bach-Beethoven-Wagner tradition Germanic. Known for meticulous composition and lyrical expression, he produced important operatic and symphonic works, including Symphonie sur un chant montagnard français and Istar. In 1894, he co-founded the Schola Cantorum in Paris, promoting Gregorian chant and early music studies. D'Indy also collected and arranged folk songs and influenced many composers through his teaching and writings.

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Rumon Gamba (born 24 November 1972) is a British conductor. He studied music at Durham University, and then went to the Royal Academy of Music in London. In 1998, he joined the BBC Philharmonic as its Assistant Conductor, and later became Associate Conductor. He left the orchestra in 2002. Gamba was Chief Conductor and Music Director of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra from 2002 to 2010, and chief conductor of the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra from 2011 to 2015. In January 2022, Gamba became chief conductor of the Oulu Symphony Orchestra. He has made over 50 CDs of for the Chandos Records label.

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