Fervaal Action Musicale en trois actes et un prologue Poèm et Musique de Vincent d'Indy Partition Chant et Piano, réduite par l'Auteur. [Piano-vocal score] by INDY, Vincent d' 1851-1931 - 1895

Paris: A. Durand et Fils [PN D. & F. 4966], 1895. Large octavo. Quarter brown morocco with marbled boards, titling gilt to spine, marbled endpapers. 1f. (half title), [i] (blank), [i] (frontispiece by Carloz Schwabe), 1f. (title), 1f. (cast list), [i] (index), [i] (movements), 386 pp.

Binding slightly worn, rubbed, and bumped; hinges split. Some light foxing; several signatures split; occasional annotations in pencil. First Edition.

Fervaal, to a libretto by the composer, was first performed in Brussels at the Théâtre de la Monnaie on 12 March 1897.

"D'Indy described Fervaal as a 'prose poem', and its roots are to be found in his libretto for Axël (1878, after Isaïas Tegner) which he transferred from a Swedish setting to his beloved southern France in 1886. The libretto, which focusses on the themes of redemption through death, the power of love and the demise of the Celtic pagan religions, was completed in 1888. D'Indy's score was composed between 1889 and 1893 and orchestrated in 1893-5. It was widely acclaimed as a renaissance in French opera, compelling admiration for its superb technique even from its critics ..."

"... Dukas (1897) praised especially 'the extraordinary variety and taste of the orchestral effects ... in one of the most brilliant scores ever written', and as late as 1911 d'Indy still refused to change the slightest detail in his opera. ' Fervaal', he observed, 'is the embodiment of my feelings during the most enthusiastic period of my life'." Robert Orledge in Grove Music Online.