A student of Franck, Vincent d’Indy founded the Schola Cantorum de Paris where he taught for many years. He was also a conductor, with a busy schedule of international touring. His compositions were permeated by the influence of Wagner - he attended the premiere of the Ring cycle - but in time he also absorbed the influence of French folk music, especially from the Vivarais, his ancestral home. Vincent d’Indy’s large-scale Piano Sonata is one of a small but masterful sequence of non-programmatic instrumental works that he wrote in the first decade of the 20th century. Notable for a novel application of variation form in its opening movement it fuses experimentation with expressive power. Poetic atmospheres and landscapes are evoked in the Tableaux de voyage, postcards of his walks in Germany.
“The Sonata of d’Indy represents for me a very original part of the French musical spirit, both aristocratic and innovative at the same time. Inspired by Wagner, the Sonata of d’Indy synthesises several musical trends of the time, but follows its personal way with a great imagination of forms and counterpoint, possessing a transcendental virtuosity. Vincent d’Indy is really one of the greatest composers of his time with a high artistic inspiration. I like to perform and to record this French music which stands between a nostalgia for a vanishing world and a huge drive for innovation, responsible for the passage from the era of classic-romanticism to a musical modern language. Behind Debussy, Ravel, Fauré, there are many lesser-known works, which reveal the genius of these composers.” (Jean-Pierre Armengaud)
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