Orc Nat De Lille/Markl - Camille Saint-Sa�ns: Symphonic Poems

A wide orchestral palette and stirring reserves of drama are used to evoke the youthful audacity and death of Pha�ton, the ultimate triumph of virtue over pleasure in La Jeunesse d�Hercule (�The Youth of Hercules�), and Hercules� punishment, spinning wool while dressed as a woman, for the �inadvertent murder� of one of his guests, in Le Rouet d�Omphale (�The Spinning Wheel of Omphale�). The ever-popular Danse macabre is a spooky depiction of Death playing a dance on his fiddle on a tomb in a graveyard surrounded by skeletal dancers. Conductor Jun M�rkl specialises in twentieth-century French music for Naxos and has earned international plaudits for his multi-volume Debussy series as well as for his Ravel and Messiaen discs.