The works on this recording paint stories in music, vividly evoking the characters, places, and periods that they depict.
Rimsky-Korsakov unfolds an epic tableau from One Thousand and One Nights as he conjures to life the brilliant and cunning Scheherazade, continually evading death and emerging victorious in her resistance against the evil Shahriar.
Using an equally grand musical canvas, Walter Boudreau explores the compelling life of visionary poet Claude Gauvreau. The piece was written for soloist Alain Lefèvre who, through the fiendishly challenging piano part, represents the character of the Québécois poet, ultimately finding redemption and transfiguration in death for this unique literary figure.
Ravel, a musical figure who in many ways links the Russian school of Rimsky-Korsakov with the Quebec inheritance of Boudreau, leaves us, in his miniature musical masterpiece, a perfect and enduring vision of a beautiful young princess, whose dance echoes through the ages.