Antar was the subtitle of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Second Symphony (1867–68), so when Ravel was asked in 1910 to write incidental music for a play about the 6th-century Arabic warrior-poet, he turned to the Russian maestro’s piece for inspiration. Ravel’s incidental music, however, needed a narrative cloak to make it suitable for the concert platform. This was duly supplied in 2014 by the French-Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf. Raymond Bisha guides us through this historic development of the tale of Antar and his beloved Abla, the Romeo and Juliet of the Arab world.
View album details of Ravel’s Orchestral Works Volume 5 at Naxos.com
Catalogue No.: 8.573448
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