D’Indy: Symphony on a French Mountain Air (HDCD review)

Also, Ravel: Piano Concerto in G.  Nicole Henriot-Schweitzer, piano; Charles Munch, Boston Symphony Orchestra.  HDTT HDCD298.

It’s always a pleasure to listen to a disc remastered by HDTT (High Definition Tape Transfers): You can depend upon a classic performance not generally available on CD and a splendid remastering job. If you recall, the folks at HDTT remaster older recordings from tapes and LPs in the public domain, make them sound better than they’ve ever sounded before, and offer them to the public burned to various formats (FLAC, DXD, DSD, HQCD, HDCD, etc.). You can hardly ask for more.

In the present instance, HDTT have remastered an old favorite of mine, The Symphony on a French Mountain Air (Symphonie sur un chant montagnard français), Op. 25, by Vincent d’Indy in an RCA recording by pianist Nicole Henriot-Schweitzer, conductor Charles Munch, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Munch’s performance is maybe the first time I ever heard this music, and it’s still the performance I most cherish, so to say I welcome this new edition is an understatement. Along with it, the same forces perform Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major.

Composers have long shown interest in mountains, especially the Romantics with their obsessive regard for Nature and some modernists with their concerns for the mystical. Thus, we’ve gotten Liszt’s Mountain Symphony, Grieg’s Hall of the Mountain King, Mussorgsky’s Night on the Bare Mountain, Strauss’s Alpine Symphony, Raff’s In the Alps, Hill’s The Sacred Mountain, Hovhaness’s Mysterious Mountain, and so on. French composer Vincent d’Indy (1851-1931) wrote his Symphony on a French Mountain Air in 1886, using a folk melody he heard in the Cévennes mountains as a primary theme (thus, the work's alternative title, Symphonie cévenole). He initially planned the work as a fantasia for piano and orchestra, although the piano part never dominates, and some critics have even labeled it a sinfonia concertante, a mixture of symphony and concerto. Like most concertos, it’s fairly brief at under half an hour and contains three movements.

D’Indy didn’t write a lot of material that people listen to anymore beyond the Symphonie cévenole, and the fact is, with no disrespect, he may have lucked into the principal tune. Be that as it may, the Boston players seem fully attune to all the charmingly bucolic nuances of the Symphony, and Ms. Henriot-Schweitzer contributes a most-sympathetic piano part. There is a gentleness about the performance that is both poignant and striking, yet when the score requires its few big, showy moments, as in the animated final movement, Munch and his crew are well up to the task. With playing this sharp and instrumentalists this much on their toes, it's no wonder the performance continues to lead the field.

The disc’s companion piece is the jazz-inflected Piano Concerto in G major (1931) by French composer Maurice Ravel (1875-1937). Here, the situation is a bit different from the d’Indy; while there is little competition from rival d’Indy recordings (Dutoit and Plasson aside), there is formidable competition in the Ravel field. In particular, it’s hard to find anything that matches the brilliant performance by Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Ettore Gracis, and the Philharmonia Orchestra on EMI. Nevertheless, Ms. Henriot-Schweitzer's performance of the Concerto is energetically fluid while remaining free of any overtly idiosyncratic mannerisms. She and Munch seem of a single mind and purpose in communicating the work's bluesy-jazzy contrasts and its lyrical Adagio in an entirely unforced manner. The whole work comes across in a more-unified style than one sometimes hears it. So, while it's perhaps not as characterful or purely magical as Michelangeli's interpretation, it's quite good, especially that dreamy slow movement.

RCA’s celebrated recording team of producer Richard Mohr and engineer Lewis Layton recorded the music at Boston’s Symphony Hall in 1958, and HDTT remastered it from an RCA LP (LSC 2271) in 2013. To say they did a good job would be putting it mildly. With the judicious application of a little noise reduction, these Fifties recordings sound almost dead quiet even in softer passages. More important, the sonics are clear and clean, demonstrating the kind of transparency that most of us admire in the old RCA "Living Stereo" series. What's more, the clarity does not come with any undue brightness, forwardness, or edginess. The sound is generally smooth and natural, with fine stereo spread, separation, depth, and air. When the piano enters, the miking places it in a well-integrated position just in front of the orchestra but not way out in front or stretching from speaker to speaker. The aural presentation sounds as well focused, dynamic, and realistic as one could want.

For further information on the various formats, configurations, blank HQCD discs, and prices of HDTT products, you can visit their Web site at http://www.highdeftapetransfers.com/storefront.php.

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

JJP

Meet the Staff

Meet the Staff
John J. Puccio, Founder and Contributor

Understand, I'm just an everyday guy reacting to something I love. And I've been doing it for a very long time, my appreciation for classical music starting with the musical excerpts on the Big Jon and Sparkie radio show in the early Fifties and the purchase of my first recording, The 101 Strings Play the Classics, around 1956. In the late Sixties I began teaching high school English and Film Studies as well as becoming interested in hi-fi, my audio ambitions graduating me from a pair of AR-3 speakers to the Fulton J's recommended by The Stereophile's J. Gordon Holt. In the early Seventies, I began writing for a number of audio magazines, including Audio Excellence, Audio Forum, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, The American Record Guide, and from 1976 until 2008, The $ensible Sound, for which I served as Classical Music Editor.

Today, I'm retired from teaching and use a pair of bi-amped VMPS RM40s loudspeakers for my listening. In addition to writing for the Classical Candor blog, I served as the Movie Review Editor for the Web site Movie Metropolis (formerly DVDTown) from 1997-2013. Music and movies. Life couldn't be better.

Karl Nehring, Editor and Contributor

For more than 20 years I was the editor of The $ensible Sound magazine and a regular contributor to both its equipment and recordings review pages. I would not presume to present myself as some sort of expert on music, but I have a deep love for and appreciation of many types of music, "classical" especially, and have listened to thousands of recordings over the years, many of which still line the walls of my listening room (and occasionally spill onto the furniture and floor, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering wife). I have always taken the approach as a reviewer that what I am trying to do is simply to point out to readers that I have come across a recording that I have found of interest, a recording that I think they might appreciate my having pointed out to them. I suppose that sounds a bit simple-minded, but I know I appreciate reading reviews by others that do the same for me — point out recordings that they think I might enjoy.

For readers who might be wondering about what kind of system I am using to do my listening, I should probably point out that I do a LOT of music listening and employ a variety of means to do so in a variety of environments, as I would imagine many music lovers also do. Starting at the more grandiose end of the scale, the system in which I do my most serious listening comprises Marantz CD 6007 and Onkyo CD 7030 CD players, NAD C 658 streaming preamp/DAC, Legacy Audio PowerBloc2 amplifier, and a pair of Legacy Audio Focus SE loudspeakers. I occasionally do some listening through pair of Sennheiser 560S headphones. I miss the excellent ELS Studio sound system in our 2016 Acura RDX (now my wife's daily driver) on which I had ripped more than a hundred favorite CDs to the hard drive, so now when driving my 2022 Accord EX-L Hybrid I stream music from my phone through its adequate but not outstanding factory system. For more casual listening at home when I am not in my listening room, I often stream music through the phone into a Vizio soundbar system that has tolerably nice sound for such a diminutive physical presence. And finally, at the least grandiose end of the scale, I have an Ultimate Ears Wonderboom II Bluetooth speaker for those occasions where I am somewhere by myself without a sound system but in desperate need of a musical fix. I just can’t imagine life without music and I am humbly grateful for the technology that enables us to enjoy it in so many wonderful ways.

William (Bill) Heck, Webmaster and Contributor

Among my early childhood memories are those of listening to my mother playing records (some even 78 rpm ones!) of both classical music and jazz tunes. I suppose that her love of music was transmitted genetically, and my interest was sustained by years of playing in rock bands – until I realized that this was no way to make a living. The interest in classical music was rekindled in grad school when the university FM station serving as background music for studying happened to play the Brahms First Symphony. As the work came to an end, it struck me forcibly that this was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and from that point on, I never looked back. This revelation was to the detriment of my studies, as I subsequently spent way too much time simply listening, but music has remained a significant part of my life. These days, although I still can tell a trumpet from a bassoon and a quarter note from a treble clef, I have to admit that I remain a nonexpert. But I do love music in general and classical music in particular, and I enjoy sharing both information and opinions about it.

The audiophile bug bit about the same time that I returned to classical music. I’ve gone through plenty of equipment, brands from Audio Research to Yamaha, and the best of it has opened new audio insights. Along the way, I reviewed components, and occasionally recordings, for The $ensible Sound magazine. Most recently I’ve moved to my “ultimate system” consisting of a BlueSound Node streamer, an ancient Toshiba multi-format disk player serving as a CD transport, Legacy Wavelet II DAC/preamp/crossover, dual Legacy PowerBloc2 amps, and Legacy Signature SE speakers (biamped), all connected with decently made, no-frills cables. With the arrival of CD and higher resolution streaming, that is now the source for most of my listening.

Ryan Ross, Contributor

I started listening to and studying classical music in earnest nearly three decades ago. This interest grew naturally out of my training as a pianist. I am now a musicologist by profession, specializing in British and other symphonic music of the 19th and 20th centuries. My scholarly work has been published in major music journals, as well as in other outlets. Current research focuses include twentieth-century symphonic historiography, and the music of Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Malcolm Arnold.

I am honored to contribute writings to Classical Candor. In an age where the classical recording industry is being subjected to such profound pressures and changes, it is more important than ever for those of us steeped in this cultural tradition to continue to foster its love and exposure. I hope that my readers can find value, no matter how modest, in what I offer here.


Bryan Geyer, Technical Analyst

I initially embraced classical music in 1954 when I mistuned my car radio and heard the Heifetz recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. That inspired me to board the new "hi-fi" DIY bandwagon. In 1957 I joined one of the pioneer semiconductor makers and spent the next 32 years marketing transistors and microcircuits to military contractors. Home audio DIY projects remained a personal passion until 1989 when we created our own new photography equipment company. I later (2012) revived my interest in two channel audio when we "downsized" our life and determined that mini-monitors + paired subwoofers were a great way to mate fine music with the space constraints of condo living.

Visitors that view my technical papers on this site may wonder why they appear here, rather than on a site that features audio equipment reviews. My reason is that I tried the latter, and prefer to publish for people who actually want to listen to music; not to equipment. My focus is in describing what's technically beneficial to assure that the sound of the system will accurately replicate the source input signal (i. e. exhibit high accuracy) without inordinate cost and complexity. Conversely, most of the audiophiles of today strive to achieve sound that's euphonic, i.e. be personally satisfying. In essence, audiophiles seek sound that's consistent with their desire; the music is simply a test signal.

Mission Statement

It is the goal of Classical Candor to promote the enjoyment of classical music. Other forms of music come and go--minuets, waltzes, ragtime, blues, jazz, bebop, country-western, rock-'n'-roll, heavy metal, rap, and the rest--but classical music has been around for hundreds of years and will continue to be around for hundreds more. It's no accident that every major city in the world has one or more symphony orchestras.

When I was young, I heard it said that only intellectuals could appreciate classical music, that it required dedicated concentration to appreciate. Nonsense. I'm no intellectual, and I've always loved classical music. Anyone who's ever seen and enjoyed Disney's Fantasia or a Looney Tunes cartoon playing Rossini's William Tell Overture or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 can attest to the power and joy of classical music, and that's just about everybody.

So, if Classical Candor can expand one's awareness of classical music and bring more joy to one's life, more power to it. It's done its job. --John J. Puccio

Contact Information

Readers with polite, courteous, helpful letters may send them to classicalcandor@gmail.com

Readers with impolite, discourteous, bitchy, whining, complaining, nasty, mean-spirited, unhelpful letters may send them to classicalcandor@recycle.bin.

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa