{"id":11847,"date":"2013-04-23T14:45:30","date_gmt":"2013-04-23T19:45:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=11847"},"modified":"2013-04-23T14:45:30","modified_gmt":"2013-04-23T19:45:30","slug":"album-review-louis-lortie-adds-sparkle-to-already-fine-album-of-vincent-dindy-symphonic-works","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2013\/04\/23\/album-review-louis-lortie-adds-sparkle-to-already-fine-album-of-vincent-dindy-symphonic-works\/","title":{"rendered":"Album review: Louis Lortie adds sparkle to already fine album of Vincent d’Indy symphonic works"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"dindy\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Canadian Louis Lortie has teamed up with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and its former music director in an excellent showcase of the underappreciated symphonic music of French composer and teacher Vincent d’Indy (1851-1931). This is the fifth volume in an ongoing survey being released on the Chandos label.<\/p>\n

\"dIndy-Ribaud\"<\/a>d’Indy was one of those fortunate people to live a long and eventful life — and unfortunate enough to outlive his times.<\/p>\n

The people he taught at the Schola Cantorum in France changed the face of that country’s music in the 20th century, but d’Indy’s aesthetic remained firmly ensconced in a rich late-Romanticism. And, like so many great minds of his time, he had been seduced by the art of Richard Wagner.<\/p>\n

Lortie makes his sparkling appearance in the three-movement Symphonie sur on chant montagnard<\/em>, Op. 25, written in 1886 (in France, where this piece continues to be performed, it is usually called the Symphonie C\u00e9venole<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Although d’Indy called it a symphony, it qualifies as a piano concerto, because the big, shiny black instrument is prominent all the way through.<\/p>\n

The structure is classical, with a broad development of a theme based on a folk tune the composer scribbled down while out on a hike in the French countryside, followed by an introspective middle movement and a stirring finale. As was the style of the time, the theme returns with modifications throughout the piece.<\/p>\n

The Icelanders give the Symphonie C\u00e9venole<\/em> their all in this spacious but slightly boomy recording. Rumon Gamba has a clear, grand sense of where everything needs to go, and Lortie is just right as a soloist who needs to behave as if he is another member of the orchestra.<\/p>\n

The rest of this endearing disc is made up of the leisurely overture to Act I of d’Indy’s 1895 opera Fervaal<\/em>, a Wagnerian epic that reached back into the mists of Gallic legend, a gorgeous 15-minute, four-movement 1884 tone poem Saugefleurie<\/em>, based on a fairy tale involving a tragically doomed love (think Rusalka as wood nymph), and M\u00e9d\u00e9e, an 1898 suite built from incidental music d’Indy wrote for a play by Catulle Mend\u00e8s.<\/p>\n

d’Indy’s impeccable sense of pacing and being able to gradually, at times almost imperceptibly, transform the sound of the orchestra is breathtaking.<\/p>\n

This beautifully crafted — and impeccably interpreted — music knows how to weave a magical spell.<\/p>\n

You’ll find more details on the album here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here is a real treat, the opening 9-1\/2 minutes of Istar<\/em>, from Vol. 3 of the album series, which was issued in 2010. This variations-as-tone-poem from 1897 depicts a section from Izdubar<\/em>, a 4,000-year-old epic Assyrian poem:<\/p>\n