In this chapter I argue that the Symphony in C (1896) responds to the contemporary concert scene that Dukas chronicled and reveals d’Indy as a decisive influence. Initially agnostic about authoring a symphony, he began drafting the music-drama Horn et Rimenhild in 1892. In 1894 he abandoned that project and, marking a departure from the theatrical cantatas and programme overtures he had produced, turned to the abstract symphonic genre. Via the resulting work the composer declared his allegiance to a French musical tradition which had once been the poor cousin of the nation’s opera culture but was now resurgent.

The Symphony in Paris during the 1890s

D’Indy clashed with the Paris Conservatoire in 1892 over the absence of the symphony from the composition curriculum. The confrontation was long overdue, as efforts to revive the symphony in France had been underway since the 1870s. On 25 February 1871, a group of musicians led by Romain Bussine and Saint-Saëns established the Société nationale de musique. Founded weeks after the Franco-Prussian War ended, the society had as its goal the promotion of instrumental French music. Although in its early days the organisation had the resources to mount orchestral concerts only occasionally, it provided a platform for new symphonies by native composers. Predating d’Indy’s efforts at the Conservatoire, Saint-Saëns, Franck, d’Indy, Lalo, and Chausson wrote new works in the genre, some of which were premiered at Société nationale concerts. The institution of two major orchestral concert series – one by Édouard Colonne in 1873 and another by Charles Lamoureux in 1881 – enhanced the city’s symphonic infrastructure, even if canonic, often Germanic, works dominated their programmes. In 1890 d’Indy became president of the Société nationale.

In subsequent years, as Brian Hart has documented, d’Indy accelerated the growth of the French symphony: he conducted contemporary works at home and abroad, added two more symphonies to his 1886 effort, taught composition at the Schola Cantorum, published his teachings in his Cours de composition musicale and made contact with individuals, including Dukas.By the early twentieth century new symphonies by members of the younger French generation, such as Dukas, Ropartz, Magnard and Rabaud, had premiered in the capital.