In the notes to this CD, a very unusual run-up is taken to promote Vincent d'Indy (1851-1931) to a wider audience. One starts by admitting that D'Indy has' not a good reputation 'and gives as reasons (1) the unfamiliarity with his work, (2) the ambiguities of his personality and (3) arguments about his artistic policy (D' Indy had founded a kind of alternative conservatory in Paris). Then it is said
… that all these things don't matter, because it is about the beauty of the music. More enticing arguments are conceivable. Admittedly, D'Indy's music isn't particularly popular. On the other hand, she has never been completely forgotten, and with that D'Indy has already achieved a lot more than many a composer. On this CD the Quatuor Joachim performs the three quartets of D'Indy. The String Quartet No. 1 Op.35 and the String Quartet No. 2 Op.45 were completed in 1891 and 1897, respectively. They are fairly elaborate pieces, entirely based on the cyclic principle that D'Indy learned from his adored tutor Franck. In essence, the cyclic principle was the same as what could be found, for example, in Liszt's symphonic poems: basing all parts on gradually introduced variations of the same theme. For D'Indy this idea would become the starting point for all his compositional thinking; he therefore emphatically recorded it in his own 'Cours de composition'. How much D'Indy remained true to his principle is evident from the String Quartet No. 3 op.96 that was created in 1929. As in the quartets written thirty years earlier, the starting point of thematic relationship and transformation has been maintained here too. However, here everything is handled more freely and that makes this quartet stronger than its predecessors. In addition, the Sextuor op.92 from 1924 sounds a bit lighter. D'Indy's music, in idiom a kind of cross between Franck and Wagner, may never have become enormously popular, but it is still worthwhile. (JvG)more
