Vincent d'Indy - Symphonie Italienne; Concert (Lionel Bringuier; Brigitte Engerer)

Information

Composer: Vincent d'Indy

• Symphony in A minor "Italienne"
• Concert in E flat major, for piano, flute, cello & strings, Op. 89

Brigitte Engerer, piano

Magali Mosnier, flute

Marc Coppey, cello

Orchestre de Bretagne

Lionel Bringuier, conductor

Date: 2007

Label: Timpani

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Review

By today's standards, Vincent d'Indy may be thought of as something of a musical curmudgeon. Throughout his long and productive lifetime, he was uniformly resistant to new movements in music, in particular the threat he perceived in the group of his young countrymen known collectively as Les Six. His own compositions support his vocal conservatism; they are very much rooted in the late Romantic with frequent tips-of-the-hat to the Baroque. D'Indy's first symphony, completed in its first draft in 1872, is a work d'Indy curiously tried to distance himself from. Although it is a chronologically "youthful" composition, it is still a very well-developed and sophisticated work, making its infrequent performance and d'Indy's own disdain somewhat perplexing. The Concert for piano, flute, cello, and strings, written in 1926, shows the pervasiveness and endurance of d'Indy's conservatism. The scoring and composition each harken back to the Baroque. Heard here performing these two pleasing works is the Orchestre de Bretagne under the baton of the very young (only 21 at the time of this recording) Lionel Bringuier. The orchestra itself is also a somewhat new player on the international stage, having been formed in 1989, only three years after the birth of its conductor. Both show a great deal of promise. From a technical standpoint, the orchestra is quite capable and refined; Bringuier's musical understanding of the score is equally evident and is fluidly transferred to the orchestra. There are times, particularly in the symphony, where the orchestra's sound is not entirely homogeneous, with individual players or even entire sections sticking out of the texture. Still, recordings of d'Indy's First Symphony are difficult if not impossible to come by, and this album is certainly a worthy introduction to the piece.

— Mike D. Brownell

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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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Lionel Bringuier (born 24 September 1986 in Nice) is a French conductor, cellist and pianist. He studied at the Conservatoire de Paris, graduating with honors in cello and conducting. Bringuier gained international recognition after winning the 2005 International Besançon Competition for Young Conductors. He later held conducting positions with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and served as music director of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich. More recently, he became principal conductor of the Orchestre philharmonique de Nice and was appointed music director of the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège.

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