Rumon Gamba ORCHESTRAL WORKS 5 © Lebrecht Music & Arts Photo Library

Vincent d’Indy Symphonie sur un Chant montagnard français (Symphonie cévenole) Saugefleurie• Médée Prelude to ‘Fervaal’ Louis Lortie piano Iceland Symphony Orchestra Rumon Gamba ORCHESTRAL WORKS 5 © Lebrecht Music & Arts Photo Library Vincent d’Indy, in his study, 1906 Vincent d’Indy (1851 – 1931) Orchestral Works, Volume 5 Symphonie sur un Chant montagnard français, Op. 25* 26:28 (Symphony on a French Mountain Air) (Symphonie cévenole) for Orchestra and Piano 1 I Assez lent – Modérément animé – Un peu plus vite – Premier Mouvement (Modéré) – Premier Mouvement (Modérément animé) – Un peu plus vite – Premier Mouvement (Modérément animé) – Assez lent 11:55 2 II Assez modéré, mais sans lenteur – Un peu plus vite – Modéré – Premier Mouvement – Modéré – Un peu plus vite 7:16 3 III Animé – Plus modéré – Un peu plus agité – Premier Mouvement (Animé) – Plus modéré – Un peu plus agité – Premier Mouvement (Animé) – Mouvement du No II (Assez modéré) – Animé – Mouvement du No II – Animé – Très animé – Même mouvement – Plus modéré, mais très intense d’expression – Un peu plus agité – Très vite 7:07 3 4 Prelude to Act I of ‘Fervaal’, Op. 40 5:13 Lent et calme – Plus lent – En animant un peu – Premier Mouvement, très calme – Très retenu Saugefleurie, Op. 21 15:54 Legend after Robert de Bonnières (1850 – 1905) 5 Assez lent et calme – Plus vite – 4:32 6 Gaîment, mais modéré – 2:48 7 Assez lent et calme – Un peu plus vite – Plus animé – Vif et agité – Un peu moins vite – 3:42 8 Tempo I (un peu plus vite) – Gaîment, mais modéré – Plus lent – Lent et calme 4:50 4 Médée, Op. 47 25:34 Orchestral Suite after the Tragedy by Catulle Mendès (1841 – 1909) 9 1 Prélude. Très lent – Vif – Un peu retenu – Premier Mouvement (Vif) – Lent et calme 8:48 10 2 Pantomime. Assez lent – Danse. Un peu plus vite 3:11 11 3 L’Attente de Médée. Très lent – Très animé – Premier Mouvement (Très lent) 5:04 12 4 Médée et Jason. Modérément animé – Animé – Beaucoup plus modéré – Animé – Plus modéré – Assez lent – Plus lent 3:51 13 5 Le Triomphe Auroral. Très lent – Plus vite – Premier Mouvement – Solennel 4:20 TT 73:40 Louis Lortie piano* Iceland Symphony Orchestra Ari Vilhjálmsson concert master Rumon Gamba 5 D’Indy: Orchestral Works, Volume 5 Unjustly neglected today by comparison eclectic, strongly influenced by Beethoven with his contemporaries Debussy and Ravel, and Wagner, into which Gregorian and folk Vincent d’Indy (1851 – 1931) nevertheless melodies were frequently integrated. Yet fully deserved Fauré’s title ‘The Samson of his enduring reputation as a dogmatic Music’ for his multifarious and generous- Catholic reactionary and author of the highly minded work as a composer, conductor, systematic textbook Cours de composition educationalist, and propagandist, which musicale can only be countered by unbiased greatly strengthened French musical culture. listening to his best music, the superb A fervent Roman Catholic and disciple of intrinsic qualities of which have the power César Franck, he carried on and developed his to surprise and confound unjustified master’s inspired teaching methods at the accusations of dryness and academicism. Schola Cantorum, founded in 1894 to redress the deficiencies of the well-established Paris Saugefleurie, Op. 21 Conservatoire. Among his numerous pupils Composed in 1884, the symphonic poem were such very different figures as Erik Satie Saugefleurie, subtitled ‘Legend’, was (1866 – 1925) and Albert Roussel (1869 – 1937). premiered at the Concerts Lamoureux the Yet the enormous impact of his scholarly following year. Its programmatic basis and pedagogical activities – which included consists of a poem taken from Contes de the revival of the long forgotten operas fées (1881) by d’Indy’s boyhood friend Robert of Monteverdi and Rameau – has wrongly de Bonnières (1850 – 1905), a minor literary overshadowed his own substantial body of figure. Saugefleurie, a humble, lonely, yet compositions in many forms, above all opera, charming little fairy living in a hollow tree and orchestral and chamber works. trunk by a lake, is surprised by the brilliant It is arguably in the field of orchestral display of uniforms, hounds, and horn composition that d’Indy particularly fanfares of a splendid royal hunt, led by the excelled, drawing inspiration from his native King’s son in person. Their eyes meet in an Ardèche region. His style was essentially unspoken love; but although Saugefleurie 6 knows that she is therefore destined to by the fourth idea, an incisively sinister die, she nevertheless gives herself to the rhythmic motif in the violins, signifying fate Prince and accepts the consequences. In de and destiny. Bonnières’s words, The last of these is subsequently taken up Amour et Mort sont toujours à l’affût: by muted horns and the music takes on an Ne croyez pas que celle que je pleure increasing urgency. A new, leaping theme in Fut épargnée. C major, also in the horns, brilliantly evoking Elle sécha sur l’heure the royal hunt and very obviously derived Comme une fleur de sauge qu’elle fut. from Siegfried, dominates the following section. There emerges another new and [Love and Death are always lying in wait: virile melody, representing the Prince, do not believe that she for whom I weep while the rhythmic idea of fate becomes was spared. increasingly prominent. The calm atmosphere She expired within the hour of the A flat introduction eventually returns, like a sage flower such as she was.] like an oasis, featuring Saugefleurie’s The Wagnerian influence is still very melody played by flutes and upper strings apparent, yet in its sonorous refinement over a broken-chord accompaniment on and clear, luminous orchestration the music two harps – a magical effect. An extended remains characteristically French. Four and varied development of this melody, important melodic ideas are announced together with the Prince’s theme, reaches in the introductory section, Assez lent et the bright tonality of E major. In due course calme, in the key of A flat major. The first of the Tristanesque idea reappears, followed these, rising and falling in a rich Wagnerian by the C major hunting-horn music which texture of cellos divided in four parts, sets gradually disappears into the distance. As the rustic scene; the second, in the horns, the work winds down, the rhythmic motif of rising chromatically à la Tristan und Isolde, fate is heard, now in conjunction with the stands for ideal love; the third, a lyrical Tristanesque idea, and Saugefleurie expires. melody characterised by flowing triplet The superbly poetic coda, in the initial quavers, represents Saugefleurie herself and tonality of A flat, depicts her transfiguration, is appropriately stated in the plaintive tones with the solo viola and flute playing her lyrical of a solo viola; this is brusquely interrupted melody in a most imaginative texture made 7 up of quaver movement in two piccolos, melody which he had recorded himself on timpani rolls and tappings, broken chords on the ridge of the Tourtous. This first appears harps, and widespread string harmonies. on cor anglais in the slow introduction; notated in alternating 9 / 8 and 6 / 8 time, it Symphonie sur un Chant montagnard brings a welcome flexibility of rhythm to a français, Op. 25 genre all too prone to foursquare phrasing. For most of the French nineteenth century, Moreover, the folk melody recurs in the symphonic forms were regarded as Germanic subsequent movements, for in his penchant and alien, and thus strongly discouraged for the cyclic treatment of themes d’Indy by the musical establishment centred on followed Franck. The symphony is scored the Paris Opéra and the Conservatoire. for orchestra and piano, without being Nevertheless, the latter years of the 1880s a virtuoso display concerto – far from saw the production of three particularly engaging in conflict with the orchestra, the noteworthy works of this kind by strong- solo part operates as primus inter pares, on minded individualists who looked to the great equal terms. While the style of much of the Austro-German tradition of Bach, Beethoven, piano writing is conventionally romantic, Liszt, and Wagner as a means of renewing frequently characterised by sweeping broken their own national traditions. Of these, both chords, the orchestration reveals a much the Third Symphony by Saint-Saëns and more sophisticated level of technique and the Symphonie sur un Chant montagnard sonorous imagination. In fact, the passages français by d’Indy were composed in 1886, of interaction between piano and harp and followed in 1888 by Franck’s Symphony are decidedly modernist in conception, in D minor. Inexplicably, in view of its inspired anticipating Hindemith’s Konzertmusik for melodic and sonorous qualities, d’Indy’s piano, brass, and harps, and Bartók’s Music symphony, which formerly received frequent for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta. performances, has become rather neglected Following the slow introduction featuring today. As a patriot and dedicated regionalist, the folk melody, the sonata-form first d’Indy was concerned to root his classically movement, in G major, opens with a robust constructed three-movement work – also rising theme in a sharp double-dotted known as the ‘Symphonie cévenole’ – in the rhythm on strings. The contrasting lyrical soil of France by basing it on a beautiful folk second subject, unusually scored for flutes, 8 piccolo, piano, and harp, moves not to the character. During the development section, conventional dominant key of D but to bright the second cyclic theme reappears, in B minor, B major, forming a mediant relationship in like a witches’ dance, on fierce unison strings the manner of Franck. This expansion of over chords played by trumpets in their deep tonality is continued in the development register. Two brief ‘flashbacks’ to the theme section – based on the first subject and of the slow movement, on solo horn, have a the folk melody – which achieves a superb poetic quality of reminiscence worthy of the sense of panoramic breadth.

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