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beg. - mm. 5
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Skills & Techniques: Accuracy, Soft Playing, Stopped Horn
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Horn 1 (F)
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Iceland Symphony Orchestra (2010)
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Orchestre national des Pays de la Loire (N/A)
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Composer & Composition Information
Vincent d'Indy (1851-1931)
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Paul Marie Théodore Vincent d’Indy was born in Paris into an aristocratic family of royalist and Catholic persuasion. He had piano lessons from an early age from his paternal grandmother, who passed him on to Antoine François Marmontel and Louis Diémer. From the age of 14 he studied harmony with Albert Lavignac. At age 19, during the Franco-Prussian War, he enlisted in the National Guard, but returned to musical life as soon as the hostilities were over. The first of his works he heard performed was a Symphonie italienne, at an orchestral rehearsal under Jules Pasdeloup; the work was admired by Georges Bizet and Jules Massenet, with whom he had already become acquainted.
On the advice of Henri Duparc, he became a devoted student of César Franck at the Conservatoire de Paris. As a follower of Franck, d’Indy came to admire what he considered the standards of German symphonism. In the summer of 1873 he visited Germany, where he met Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms. On 25 January 1874 his overture Les Piccolomini was performed at a Pasdeloup concert, sandwiched between works by Bach and Beethoven. Around this time he married one of his cousins. In 1875 his symphony dedicated to János Hunyadi was performed. That same year he played a minor role – the prompter – at the premiere of Bizet’s opera Carmen. In 1876 he was present at the first production of Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle at Bayreuth. This made a great impression on him and he became a fervent Wagnerite. In 1878 d’Indy’s symphonic ballad La Forêt enchantée was performed. The text is reprinted from the Mahler Foundation where more information about the composer can be found. The image is reprinted from Last.fm. |
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Istar, variations symphoniques, Op. 42
Istar (1896), his most familiar score after the Symphony on a French Mountain Air, is one of his works that does not center on French material; but it does embody d’Indy’s style both in its meticulous construction and in its limpid orchestration. The program, from Babylonian myth, tells the story of Istar, the goddess of love and fertility, who descends into the underworld to retrieve her dead lover. She passes through seven gates, and at each she has to discard one piece of jewelry or clothing; she only achieves her aim when she stands naked beyond the last gate. If you know the Salomes that Richard Strauss and Florent Schmitt composer a decade or so later, you can imagine the kind (if lurid music that such a situation might have drawn from them. But d’Indy typically, produced something loftier, displacing the story’s sensual potential by focusing on its invitations for structural ingenuity.
Specifically, Istar is a controlled exercise in the form of seven Variations–with a curious twist. Although the work makes considerable use of two themes that are presented at the outset–a brief descending horn call and a longer melody with dotted rhythms that represents Istar’s walk from gate to gate–it soon appears that there is a third theme generating the variations, too. Yet it is too difficult to grasp its precise outline, for in contrast to most traditional essays in the genre, Istar begins with the most complex of the variations, not with the simplest. The main theme becomes progressively more distinct as Istar discards her garments, but we only hear it clearly in the seventh variation, where its shape (and its motivic relationship to the other themes) is finally revealed in a striking unison statement. The walking theme, now radiant, crowns the coda, as the music dies away.
The text is written by & reprinted from Peter J. Rabinowitz (American Symphony Orchestra) where more information about the composition can be found.
Specifically, Istar is a controlled exercise in the form of seven Variations–with a curious twist. Although the work makes considerable use of two themes that are presented at the outset–a brief descending horn call and a longer melody with dotted rhythms that represents Istar’s walk from gate to gate–it soon appears that there is a third theme generating the variations, too. Yet it is too difficult to grasp its precise outline, for in contrast to most traditional essays in the genre, Istar begins with the most complex of the variations, not with the simplest. The main theme becomes progressively more distinct as Istar discards her garments, but we only hear it clearly in the seventh variation, where its shape (and its motivic relationship to the other themes) is finally revealed in a striking unison statement. The walking theme, now radiant, crowns the coda, as the music dies away.
The text is written by & reprinted from Peter J. Rabinowitz (American Symphony Orchestra) where more information about the composition can be found.
Notable Performances/Recordings:
Royal Scottish National Orchestra (2016)
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra (2014)
Iceland Symphony Orchestra (2010)
Royal Scottish National Orchestra (2016)
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra (2014)
Iceland Symphony Orchestra (2010)