The song cycle Shéhérazade by Ravel had its premiere in 1904, five years after he composed an overture. The overture was not a success: Ravel was reviewed as a mediocrely gifted debutant … who will perhaps become something if not someone in about ten years, if he works hard. Ravel took it to heart and the planned opera was never to be. Neither was publication during his lifetime.
The plan for an Oriental composition didn’t leave his mind though. When the writer Tristan Klingsor (the Wagnerian pseudonym of the French poet Léon Leclère) was inspired by Rimsky-Korsakov’s symphonic poem of the same name, he did what he could do best: he wrote some poems. Ravel contacted asked him if he could put them to music, and yes, he could. This song cycle was the result. The tree of Shéhérazade bore another fruit.
This is the second record I have of this work. Earlier I wrote about Elly Ameling’s attempt from just one year later.