D'Indy Vicent. Poeme des Montagnes Suite pour piano, op. 15

Paris: J. Hamelle Éditeur, 1885. — 30 p.Paul Marie Théodore Vincent d'Indy was a French composer and teacher. His influence as a teacher, in particular, was considerable. He was a co-founder of the Schola Cantorum de Paris and also taught at the Paris Conservatoire.
5 movements: Harmonie Le Chant des Bruyères, Danses rythmiques, Plein Air, HarmonieLe Poème des montagnes is d'Indy's first work inspired by the Vivarais, a region he discovered at the age of 13 and where he met his cousin Isabelle de Pampelonne, who became his wife in 1875. Often likened to a symphonic poem for piano, it is presented as a triptych framed by a prelude and a postlude ("Harmonie") whose mysterious arpeggiated chords, evocative of "a veil of morning mists against a backdrop of high, sleeping peaks" (Alfred Cortot), synthesize the tonal trajectory of the score. This is strewn with programmatic indications, one of which ("La bien-aimée") accompanies the appearance of a cyclical theme which, like the idée fixe in Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique , appears in all three movements and resurfaces at the end of the postlude ("Souvenir?"). D'Indy would refer to it in 1906 in Souvenirs , a poem for orchestra dedicated to the memory of his wife. The poetic atmosphere and piano writing of Poème des montagnes are in the tradition of the German Romantics (quoting the waltz from Weber's Freischütz ) and the Pièces pittoresques of Chabrier, to whom the work is dedicated. Le Chant des Bruyères experiments with a quasi-impressionist writing producing astonishing effects of opacity and distance ("Brouillard", "Lointain"). The Danses rhythmiques play on incessant changes of time alternating with a vigorous "Valse grotesque". Full of tenderness and passion, Plein Air sees the theme of the "beloved" transform into a passionate love duet ("À deux").
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