The d’Indy discography has become increasingly distinguished of late, largely thanks to Rumon Gamba’s comprehensive survey of the orchestral works for Chandos. Whether Jean-Luc Tingaud’s Naxos disc with the RSNO marks the start of a further cycle is unclear, though it is unquestionably another significant achievement, well worth hearing if you care for the composer’s output.

For d’Indy, as for Bruckner, the symphony as a genre had devotional associations and the conflict between faith and uncertainty in the Second is both dramatised and intellectualised by the rigorous derivation of its thematic material from two brief phrases heard at the outset. Tingaud is wonderfully persuasive with it, the freshness of his approach sweeping away notions of the work as being coolly intelligent and a bit forbidding. There’s a dark intensity in the first movement and an electric energy in the whirling figurations of the finale, though Tingaud can’t quite disguise the episodic quality of the slow movement with its occasionally exaggerated contrasts of mood.

Souvenirs, dating from 1906, and Istar, written 10 years previously, are works of more immediate impact. D’Indy composed Souvenirs shortly after the death of his first wife, Isabelle, and the score derives its material from an early piano piece, Poème des montagnes. Images of midnight and noontide, possibly Nietzschean, underline the contrast between present grief and overwhelming memories of past joy. Istar, in contrast, is fin de siècle erotica, depicting the goddess Ishtar descending into limbo, shedding her garments as she goes, to a set of variations in reverse order, with the unadorned theme, representing her eventual nakedness, placed last. Both works are superbly done. The anguish of Souvenirs really hits home. Istar sounds very sensual and the RSNO have a field day with its virtuoso scoring, particularly the brass and woodwind, who are on fine form throughout. The Fervaal Prelude makes a strong filler: it’s often described – and sometimes dismissed – as Wagnerian, though Tingaud reminds us just how much it also owes to d’Indy’s teacher, César Franck.