Through December 1905, d'Indy was on tour in the United States conducting programs of recent French music—Franck's Psyché et Eros, Fauré's Pelléas et Mélisande Suite, two of the Debussy Nocturnes, Dukas' L'Apprenti sorcier, Magnard's Chant funèbre, Chausson's Symphony, and his own Istar and Symphony No. 2—in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, to receptions and reviews ranging from reserved (for his Symphony) to enthusiastic. Upon his return to France at the end of the month he found his wife in agony, apparently the victim of a cerebral aneurysm—she died in his arms during the early morning of the 30th. Theirs had been a love match. Isabelle de Pampalonne, whom he married as a young church organist, choirmaster of the Colonne Orchestra, and fledgling composer—albeit, also wealthy and aristocratic—was his cousin, and he had been obliged to outwait the objections and death of his grandmother, Countess Rézia d'Indy, to be joined to her on August 11, 1875. In 1881, d'Indy was occupied with rapturous protestations of devotion in his piano suite, Poème des montagnes, in which Isabelle's theme, frankly labeled "la bien-aimée," figures prominently. Isabelle's grandson, Yves de Becdelièvre, recalled that "My grandmother adored her husband, but she detested music." Isabelle, however, was determined to help her husband achieve his goals and maintained a closely organized household. As could only be expected after 30 years of happiness and shared adventure, Isabelle's death devastated d'Indy, leaving him temporarily at loose ends, but work afforded respite from grief.

Repairing to the family estate at Faugs, in the Ardèche, in the summer of 1906, he quickly put aside attempted work on incidental music for an adaptation of Phèdre and embarked, almost secretively, on the composition of a large tone poem, Souvenirs, dedicated "à la memoire de la bien-aimée." Completed by year's end, the work was given a semi-private audition by the Société Nationale on April 20, 1907. Only at the insistence of friends, with whom he'd shared the score, was he persuaded to publish the work and allow it to be performed at a Colonne Concert on December 22. Once again, Isabelle's "bien-aimée" theme figures prominently in this poignant, almost frantic, intensely personal evocation of lost happiness, worked with the sum of d'Indy's art.

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