DEATH IN PARIS

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 29, 4 February 1932, Page 19

DEATH IN PARIS

VINCENT D'INDY

FAMOUS COMPOSER

, M., Vincent d'lndy, tho most eminent French composer of the older generation, has died 'suddenly of heart failure in Paris. Ho was just 80 years of age.

A descendant o£ a noble family from the Department of Ardechc, in the Cevennes mountains, Vincent d'lndy was born in Paris in March, 1851, says the '"Manchester Guardian." He studied the piano, ' first under Dicnier, then under Marm.on.tel, and harmony With Lavignac,. Already at that early period'bis predilection tended toward the classics, Bach and Beethoven being his; favourite masters. In 18(57, however,'' he came across Berlioz's treatise, on orchestiation, which he studied with avidity, and two years later Henri Duparc, with whom ho struck up a friendship, brought him under tho spell of Wagner. Service in the -army- during the Franco-Prussian War frustrated the project of an opera on Victor Hugo's "lies Burgraves." But soon after ho came under the notice of Cesar Franek, and studied the -organ and composition under him. Before long-he was the most distinguished pupil of Franck, whose examplo remained the' dominant influence in his careers-disputed lonly by an hereditary attraction toward the folk-music of the Cevennes: country and, to a lesser extent/by Wagner. PEACTIOAL STUDY. , Between 1875 and 1878 D'lndy acquired practical"" .experience as organist, 'chorus master,' and drummer in the Colonno Orchestra. In the meantime he had^paid several visits to Germany and Switzerland and' came into contact with Liszt, Brahms, and Wagner. At Bayreuth he heard the latter 'a "King" cycle, and gradually made the'acquaintance of alj the other Wagneriati works .there as well\as in- Munich.» The outcome of these experiences' was<- an engagement offered him by Lamoureux in-1887 to take an important share; in tho Paris production of "Lohengrin.". On the death of>Franck, in 1890, Vincent d'lndy succeeded him as president of the Societe Rationale de Musique, of which he had already^ beeii secretary, and six years later, having" refused a professorship at the.Conservatoire, he founded the famous Sehola-Cantorum in conjunction; yntlx' Charles Bordes and Alexandra Gntlmaat,-*'-Many of the pupils hej'^aughtf'Tthere have become eminent. ~. :. f ,.:-, " ' ":^|rai. WORKS. : Among Dflndy's most important and representative works are the "Wallenstein" ft trilogy, for orchestra, the dramatic legend -"Le" 'Chant de la Cloche," the "Symphonic Montagnarde" for piano and orchestra, the symphony entitled .^Jfourd'ete^a la Montagne,'* and three great works for the stage,: "Fervaal," "L'Etranger," and "La Legende de Saint-Christophe." His book* on Cesar' Franck"'is still the standard biography. ;■'■.• :■ Vincent d'lndy was a high-minded musician who pursued his ams with a faith;; in the nobility of his art which no opposition and no change of fashion could shake. Bomain KoSand said of him' r; that • the' moral, almost religious, character of his artistic personality was .an..essential*quality'in him' even more; than- 'his1 intellectual; culture. He heid in France a position" not unlike that of Sir Edward Elgar in England.