The real find here is Souvenirs, a haunting, imaginatively scored tone-poem that d'Indy composed in 1906 in remembrance of his wife, who had died at the tail-end of the previous year. It starts with what sounds like a ghostly premonition of Shostakovich's Eleventh Symphony, then proceeds to varieties of chromatic lyricism that recall the Debussy of Pelleas and the lone Symphony of a composer d'Indy had met earlier in his career and considered ''highly musical, very nice, well mannered [and] rather shy'', Ernest Chausson. Souvenirs alternates reflective quiet music with volatile outbursts, whereas Saugeleurie (''Sageflower''—a touching fairy tale) is more wholesomely outgoing and somewhat reminiscent of Franck and (in the very opening) Wagner. Here d'Indy's orchestra features a pair of valve cornets as well as three trombones, a tuba, two harps and percussion (including three sets of timpani). Franck's Le Chausseur maudit (composed two years earlier) springs most readily to mind, but the musical language is strong in itself and the material reasonably memorable.
The Third Symphony, a highly inventive commentary on aspects of the Great War, also employs a large orchestra, but d'Indy uses it economically and the finale's closing moments, based on a Gregorian hymn ''about St Michael slaying the (Teutonic) dragon'' is bold and spartan where a less expert hand might have made it crudely bombastic. It is a perplexing and unpredictable work that suggests a specific programme, its second movement a colourful reminder of barrack-room bugle calls and its third, which annotator Jean Galois claims pokes ''fun at contemporary German music'', vaguely reminiscent of Schoenberg's Pelleas. Cynical, colourful and quite independent of its late-romantic antecedents, d'Indy's Symphony de bello gallico is an ambiguous, loosely constructed piece that effectively extends one's limited experience of its composer.
Theodore Guschlbauer's broadly sympathetic readings are more appredative of the music's lent et calm than its vif et agite; things go splendidly while d'Indy's thoughts are ruminative, quiet and pensive, but as soon as passions are aroused, the argument sounds more effortful than impulsive (a fault that visits so many modern performances of similar repertoire) and the intended contrast is undermined. The actual playing is good, the recording excellent, but were, say, Solti, Abbado, Maazel or Mehta to espouse d'Indy's worthy cause, then the effect would likely be stronger than it is here. Still, it's a gripping programme and essential listening for all incurable romantics.'