Symfonieorkest van de Munt . Kazushi Ono

By far the best-known work in Arabian literature is Sheherazade's book of the night. Just over a thousand stories by this legendary courtesan were assembled between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. This collection of Arabian, Indian and Persian fairytales soon found its way to Western bedsides. Stories full of magical imagination, exotic wonder and boundless clichés, Arabian fairytales which provided the music world with a mass of inspiration. In 1888, with his dazzling orchestral work 'Sheherazade', Rimsky-Korsakov wrote the perfect soundtrack for this exciting collection of stories. Ravel's set of orchestral songs with the same title - using immature lyrics by the Wagnerian poet and painter Tristan Klingsor - goes just as much for oriental tones and musical imagination. It should in fact come as no surprise that Ravel concentrated on these Eastern stories. As early as 1898 this French composer conceived the plan of writing a magical opera on the subject. Ravel's masterly orchestral pastiche, 'La valse', and the over-familiar but still intriguing 'Boléro' complete the programme with a great deal of orchestral dance power. Both these works will also be performed again in the following concert by Jos van Immerseel and Anima Eterna, undoubtedly from a completely different viewpoint.