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Vincent d’Indy

Vincent d’Indy

Suite dans le style ancien (Old Style Suite)

A methodical composer, conductor and educator, Vincent D’Indy made a place for himself at the center of French musical life in the transformative final decades of the nineteenth century. As a student at the Paris Conservatoire, he idolized his organ teacher, César Franck, and he expanded his horizon through trips to Germany to study piano with Franz Liszt and to attend Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle of operas. Another crucial source of inspiration for D’Indy was music from his country’s distant past, leading him to become a devoted conductor and editor of early music. That influence shines through in his “Suite in the Olden Style,” composed for an unusual ensemble of trumpet, two flutes and string quartet in 1886.

The trumpet had enjoyed its first heyday in the Baroque era, at a time when the instrument had no valves, requiring players to create all the pitches with precise adjustments of their lips and breath. Instrument design progressed rapidly in the mid-1800s, and by the time D’Indy wrote his Suite, French musicians were exploring all the possibilities of the growing lineup of valve trumpets, including the trumpet in D. Pitched slightly higher than standard trumpets and possessing a bright and clear tone, these instruments were the best available option at the time for playing Baroque solos on valve trumpets. Some of the flourishes D’Indy wrote for the trumpet in D mimic the fanfare rhythms and high-flying melodic range typical of the Baroque era’s “natural” trumpets, but other details take full advantage of the new instrument’s wide range and dynamic control, like the quiet long tones of the Prelude that melt into the moving figures from two flutes. Historical dance rhythms in the Sarabande and Menuet and formal counterpoint in the finale add to the antique sheen.

Aaron Grad ©2021

Jean Françaix

Clarinet Quintet

Intermission
Claude Debussy

Claude Debussy

String Quartet in G Minor

About This Program

Approximate length 2:00