D’INDY: Summer Day in the Mountains, Op. 61; The Enchanted Forest, Op. 8; Souvenirs, Op. 62 – Iceland Symphony Orchestra/ Rumon Gamba, conductor – Chandos
by Audiophile Audition | Jun 20, 2008 | Classical CD Reviews |
D’INDY: Summer Day in the Mountains, Op. 61; The Enchanted Forest, Op. 8; Souvenirs, Op. 62 – Iceland Symphony Orchestra/ Rumon Gamba, conductor – Chandos 10464, 63:25 *****:Spectacular. This is all I kept thinking to myself when first listening to this remarkable disc, the first volume of a projected series of the orchestral works of French composer Vincent d’Indy (1851-1931) – surely one of the most unjustly neglected composers of our time, and one whose music has always made a positive impression on me, though like you, I have not heard a lot of it. This series by Chandos featuring the Iceland Symphony and its ever-so-sympathetic conductor Rumon Gamba, and in vivid and jarringly realistic sound (so completely unlike the Chandos of yesteryear) promises to rectify the mistakes of so many years and finally give us some recordings that do the composer full justice.
And what music! We open with Jour d’ete a la montagne, one of his mature masterworks, as he takes us through a day in the Ardeches, his mountainous home, from sunrise to sunset. You will hear all sorts of influences in D’Indy’s music, Debussy (whom he greatly admired), Wagner (even making a trip to Germany to study the things happening there at the time), Franck (his idol), and even some of the more rhapsodic moments of Charles Koechlin. He was a master craftsman, and his orchestration is brilliant and sweeping, his melodic sense profound and ecstatic, and his overall sense of tone painting unparalleled.
The earlier
La Foret enchantee is much more Germanic in content, from the hunting horn to the scampering scherzo of the last movement, easily redolent of Franck’s
Le Chasseur Maudit and even more exciting. This piece is based on a ballad by the poet Ludwig Uhland that tells of the Knight Harald riding through the enchanted moonlit forest with his warriors and their encounter with the elves of the realm. The music is as magical as the story, and here one even detects hints of the early romantic Arnold Schoenberg, especially in the orchestration. Souvenirs is a love poem to the composer’s dying wife, the anchor of his life, and is meant to be a reminiscence of all the wonderful times they spent together. Particularly touching are the final moments of the piece where 12 harp harmonics intone the hour of midnight, the exact moment of his wife’s repose. This is exquisite music.
I for one can’t wait for the next volumes, and rare is the day when I get this excited about a project. It has been too long coming, but now that it is here Chandos seems intent on doing it right. The wonderful playing of the ISO shows that they feel the same way about it as I do.
–Steven Ritter
