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I used to think that D'Indy's Symphony on a French Mountain Air was a description of the air on top of the mountain, and funnily enough, it is. Sort of. It's really a Lisztian transformation of the simple shepherd's song sung by the English horn at the beginning through to the finale, in which the original song is still discernable, but greatly changed. It's also a sort of piano concerto and symphony together, a really 19th century French solution of the problems of form in the new, non-sonata style, similar to Frank's Symphonic Variations, Saint-Sean's Piano Concerto No. 4, or his "Organ" Symphony.
The Munch/Boston (RCA) recording is probably the best available, but the Dutoit is certainly good, with much better sound. Jean-Yves Thibaudet is perhaps not the match of Nicole Henroit-Schweitzer on the Munch, since he seems to be a mere extra to the orchestra rather than a soloist, and plays in a fairly objective way. Overall, good, though.
The Symphony by Dukas is an excellent showpiece for orchestra, though not quite the equal of his most famous music based on Goethe's poem about the sorcerer's student, and though Dukas was not a student of D'Indy, his Symphony may very well remind you of the earlier work in the timbre of its orchestration. Walter Weller and the London Philharmonic turn in a sit up and take notice virtuoso performance, which makes you wonder why we haven't heard more from this conductor.
The recorded and transfered sound on this disc is excellent on both performances, as we would expect from Decca. A very enjoyable reissue.
