Grove Koger

This review appeared originally in the Nov./Dec. 1993 issue of the late-lamented Disc Respect, published by Boise’s Record Exchange.

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At its best, French music balances clarity and passion with greater ease than the music of any other nation. And Vincent d’Indy, who was born March 27, 1851, was the very personification of that balance. D’Indy was noted in his youth for championing musical drama and program music in France—relatively “advanced” positions for that day and age. But d’Indy was not revolutionary, and by the time he reached the last decades of his life, he had taken to attacking the music of younger colleagues such as Prokofiev and Stravinsky. Today, of course, we “know” that Prokofiev and Stravinsky are major composers, and we recognize d’Indy—if at all—as a footnote. But footnotes are often more fascinating than the text they’re supposed to supplement.

Erato has brought together d’Indy’s two most memorable works, both inspired incidentally by the mountainous Cévennes district of southern France. D’Indy visited the area for the first time in 1864, and was so taken by its wild beauty that he returned at least once a year for the rest of his life. His Symhonie sur un chant Montagnard “Cévenole” (1896, usually referred to in English as Symphony on a French Mountain Air) utilizes a shepherd’s song from the Ardèche region of the Cèvennes. Its limpid melody recurs throughout the work, sometimes plaintively, ultimately as a joyful, triumphant dance. D’Indy heightens the symphony’s color by incorporating a piano, but as an orchestral rather than a solo instrument. The result is a sparkling, thoroughly optimistic piece of music.

D’Indy composed Jour d’été à la montagne (Summer Day on the Mountain) in 1905 on one of his visits to the Ardèche. This “Symphonic Triptych” takes us through Aurore (a hushed dawn), Jour (day, an afternoon spent lazily beneath the pines, and Soir (evening, the sunlight fading fast), but of course another meaning can be read into its program. Although not as well known as d’Indy’s symphony, it marks an advance. The musical content of the symphony sometimes sounds determined by the form. Here the form seems to flow naturally from the content.

There are plenty of good recordings of the symphony; my only reservation with Janowsky’s version with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France is his tendency to push its tempos so hard that the poetry nearly vanishes. On the other hand, the sensuous triptych has no serious competition.

If d’Indy’s conservative brilliance appeals to you (and it’s a hard heart indeed that doesn’t warm to such sun-drenched sound), sample his Poème des rivages and Diptyque méditerranéen, two tone poems describing the Mediterranean. Both have been reissued by EMI in faultless performances by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo under the baton of Georges Prêtre.

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The image on the cover of the Musifrance CD is a detail from the painting Vue de la plaine de Gresivaudan près de Grenoble, effet du matin by Achille Giroux. The cover of the EMI CD reproduces a detail from Rochers, one of Louis Valtat’s many paintings of the rocky coastline of Antheor on the French Riviera.

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The same region of southern France that inspired d’Indy also attracted Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson, whose 1879 classic Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes recounts his 12-day journey. I include it in When the Going Was Good and will be posting my entry about it later this year.