Figure XXVII.
Finale of "Jour d'Été." Très animé et joyeux
(b)Très lent
The "Jour d'Été à la Montagne," in three movements, "Aurore" ("Dawn"), "Jour—Après-midi sous les pins" ("Day: Afternoon under the Pines") and "Soir" ("Evening"), is characteristic of the composer in that, despite its program, there is in it little scene-painting, such as we find so constantly in Strauss and others. A memorable suggestion of dawn, with its vague shapes in the half-light and its bird songs, in the first movement[50]; a whiff of peasant dance-tune in the second, coming up through the baking heat under the pines; in the third some evening chimes from the valley: that is all. It is the emotional significance of the scene in its varying aspects, its appeal to the sympathies and associations of a poetic observer, that interest the musician. The main theme of the last movement (Figure XXVII, a) thus suggests the joy of life in the bright summer afternoon; its activity depicts no mere external scene, we feel, but reflects the elation of the sensitive heart, witnessing this scene. And when, at the end, after the suggestions of descending night and the distant jangle of chimes tempered by the evening air, the same melody returns in softest sonorities of strings and in quietest motion (Figure XXVII, b), we hear in it again no merely objective facts, but the tranquil evening thoughts of a poet, spiritualized in meditation. Never since he first essayed such theme transformation in a large work, in the "Symphony on a Mountain Theme" of 1886, which M. Paul Dukas called "a single piece in three episodes," has d'Indy been more successful in drawing together the most opposing moods by the single subjective point of view from which they are regarded, as incarnated in a common theme. Never has he written a more characteristic page than that lovely breath of evening tenderness, the meditation of a lover on the world toward which darkness and sleep gently approach.
Figure XXVIII.
(a) Lentement
