VINCENT D’INDY (1851-1931): Symphony No. 2 in B Flat, Op. 57, Souvenirs, Op. 62, Istar, Op. 42, Prelude to Act I of Fervaal, Op. 40.

Description: Only the second recording since 1981 of the symphony, a work conceived about the time Debussy's Pelleas et Mélisande premiered and finished in 1903. Franckian in its cyclic construction it also contains elements of impressionistic musical language which show that D'Indy, no matter how he saw Impressionism as a threat to the formal clarity and tonal harmony represented by the "classic" symphonic form, was open to new ideas in spite of his conservatism. Souvenirs is also rarely recorded - a 19-minute tone-poem from 1907 inspired by the death of D'Indy's first wife, in which a leitmotif representing the late Isabelle is developed and transformed through a series of musical reminiscences of youth and happier times.