The Iceland Symphony Orchestra’s invaluable survey of d’Indy’s orchestral scores here reaches Vol 5 and one of those few works that keep his name alive, albeit only just. The Symphonie sur un chant montagnard français is a typical, and beguiling, example of the way d’Indy managed to mix the formal discipline that he inherited from César Franck with the imagery of nature that proved to be a fertile source of inspiration. The symphony was completed in 1886, two years before Franck’s in D minor, but the central slow movement attests to d’Indy’s debt to his mentor in certain melodic and harmonic procedures, as does the cyclic treatment of material in the symphony as a whole. But d’Indy is his own man, conjuring up fragrant atmosphere from his mountain theme and generating a good deal of healthy vigour in the finale. All this is potently communicated by the orchestral playing and by Louis Lortie’s scintillating fluency in the piano obbligato.

The hushed prelude to the opera Fervaal shows that he was no less susceptible to the influence of Wagner than were other composers of his generation (think Parsifal), and the symphonic poem Saugefleurie indicates that he knew The Ring and Tristan, as do the serpentine harmonies and rich orchestral textures in parts of the suite Médée, drawn from incidental music for Catulle Mendès’s play. But d’Indy brings to it an individual accent, which these performances interpret purposefully and with a vital romantic sweep.