- Composer: Paul Marie Théodore Vincent d'Indy (27 March 1851 -- 2 December 1931) - Performers: Quatuor Joachim - Year of recording: 2001 String Quartet No. 2 in E major, Op. 45, written in 1897. 00:00 - I. Lentement - Animé 12:24 - II. Très animé 16:59 - III. Très lent 27:40 - IV. Lentement - Très vif The decade of the 1890s was, for d'Indy, largely occupied with the monumental Fervaal -- a project bequeathed by an earlier self. The subject matter, derived from Esaias Tegnér's "Axel," fascinated him fom the 1870s; composition occupied him from 1889 until 1893, while the orchestration was not completed until the summer of 1895. The premiere was achieved on 12 March 1897, at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, requiring d'Indy's constant presence at rehearsals and unremitting influence with the Monnaie's management not to abandon it. Meanwhile, the Schola Cantorum, which had begun as a choral society for the revival of Renaissance religious music, was being transformed -- with d'Indy's bankrolling, administrative energy, and course materials (the famous Cours de composition musicale) -- into one of the finest music schools in the world. Given his dogmatically articulate conservatism, he emerged through these years as a partisan spokesman and chef d'école, in several senses -- a position carrying tremendous pressure for every opus to be un coup de maître. The years dominated by Fervaal produced, apart from several small occasional pieces, but three ambitious works -- all "masterpieces," in varying definitions -- the String Quartet No. 1 over 1890-1891; Istar, a magnificent set of symphonic variations, in 1896; and the Second Quartet in 1897. The First Quartet bears as an epigraph a kind of melodic sigh furnishing the primary material of the first and second movements and reappearing in the remaining movements, though the work admits non-related ancillary themes. With the Second Quartet, d'Indy is determined to derive the materia musica from a single four-note cell, adduced in enigmatic fashion at the head of the score. Nominally G sharp, A, C sharp, B -- an archetype found in Gregorian chant, Bach, the finale of Mozart's "Jupiter" Symphony -- the staff bears three clefs indicating less absolute pitches than a basic shape, an intervallic series. This, and the curious themes derived from it, seem to protest too much against their arbitrariness through four substantial movements as d'Indy's considerable charm wears thin and his bracing athleticism turns wearing. His cellular technique -- looking beyond Liszt and Bach to the Renaissance mass composers while anticipating developments in post-World War II dodecaphonic practice -- and its extrapolation in sonata form possess interest for those trained to hear it. d'Indy succeeds magisterially, though for the listener innocent of technical lore his victory may prove to have been Pyrrhic, and only the 2nd movement may prove to be of interest to them. The premiere was given by the Parent Quartet o