Composed in late 1903 to three poems selected from a collection by fellow ’Apache’ Tristan Klingsor, Ravel’s song cycle was first performed at a Société Nationale concert presented at the Salle Nouveau Théâtre on May 17, 1904 featuring soprano Jeanne Hatto accompanied by an orchestra under the baton of Alfred Cortot. The order at the premiere ended with the longest movement (Asie), though Ravel ultimately placed this movement first before the work’s publication in 1904 by Gabriel Astruc in the composer’s reduction for voice and piano. The work was later taken over by Durand, who issued the full score a decade later.The cycle is actually the second work by Ravel bearing the title. The first, a 13-minute orchestral overture composed in 1898, remained unpublished until 1975. Klingsor’s collection of free-verse poems, inspired by the famous Rimsky-Korsakov orchestra piece, was published in 1903. There is only a minor connection between the overture and the song cycle which is confined to a theme found in Asie which has similarities to the one found at the beginning of the overture. Offered here is Clint Nieweg’s carefully edited reprint of a later issue (by Durand) of the voice and piano reduction.
