Bour Conducts d'Indy

The music of French composer Vincent d'Indy (1851-1931) is not often heard in the concert hall, but various record companies have kept it alive through their releases.

Even so, the current record catalogue displays few contemporary recordings of the composer's most popular work, the Symphonie Sur un Chant Montagnard Français (Symphony on a French Mountain Air). It's amazing that such an extraordinary delightful work should be so neglected. And perhaps d'Indy's best work, Jour d'Été a la Montagne (Summer Day on the Mountain), is even less known.

This Ducretet-Thompson release from 1954 pairs the works in fine performances from two artists who are themselves underrated - conductor Ernest Bour and, in the Symphonie Sur un Chant Montagnard Français, pianist Daniël Wayenberg.

1951 commemorative postcard

Although d'Indy was an important teacher (Roussel, Magnard, Canteloube Milhaud and Honegger were among his students), he also was something of maverick. A disciple of Franck, he was a champion of German music at a time when other French composers, such as Saint-Saëns, were little inclined to look outside of France for inspiration. He also was out of favor with such younger composers as Ravel.

But that's irrelevant to enjoying the music on this disc. The Symphonie Sur un Chant Montagnard Français is pure pleasure, building on memorable folk tunes, and superbly presented here, particularly by the graceful pianist Daniël Wayenberg.

Jour d'Été a la Montagne is "one of the noblest musical scores inspired by nature," or so wrote critic Peter Hugh Reed in a review included in the download.

Ernest Bour

Conductor Bour (1913-2001), born in Alsace-Lorraine, was known as an exponent of contemporary music. He led premieres of works by such composers as Górecki, Ligeti, Rihm, Stockhausen and Xenakis, while serving as music director in Strasbourg and Baden-Baden.

Daniël Wayenberg

The gifted pianist Wayenberg (1929-2019) was of Dutch extraction but lived most of his adult life in Paris. He was first-prize winner at the 1949 Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition. Wayenberg also was a composer and maintained an interest in jazz.

Reviewer Reed credits Wayenberg with sharpening the conductor's rhythm, but I can find no fault with the direction. If you are familiar with the French orchestras of the time, these performances will seem typical. The Symphonie is with the Orchestre du Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, which may be a nom du disque for one of the many Parisian orchestras, possibly the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, which gave concerts at the time in the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. (The Conservatoire orchestra had recorded the Symphonie in 1953 with its music director, André Cluytens.)

For Jour d'Été a la Montagne Bour conducts the Orchestre Radio-Symphonique, which may have been the Orchestre National de la Radio-Télévision Française, the present-day Orchestre National de France.

The recordings are good for the time. Note that Jour d'Été a la Montagne begins at a very low level, depicting the dawn. For the release, Decca-London provided a cover in children's picture-book style, a contrast with the pastels of the French cover at left.