Louis VIERNE, a man not generally known as a song writer, set to music several series of poems that resonated well with the difficult circumstances of his own life.

Inspired by such poets as Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine and Jean Richepin, Vierne gave full flight to his imagination in these depictions of every human condition from ectasy to despair. The scenery ranges from the cold stillness of a winter's day to the full fury of a ferocious storm and includes all manner of living creatures, from butterflies and birds to angels and witches. Vierne's pianistic treatment reflects the poetry, sometimes hauntingly beautiful and delicate, at other times fiercely passionate and even aggressive, with the piano part seeming to take precedence over the voice.

This double-album contains all of Vierne's major song cycles for voice and piano, plus the five Histoires naturelles by Ravel, an almost exact contemporary of Vierne (they both died in 1937).

The Ravel songs are settings of prose poems by Jules Renard featuring humorous tales about birds and insects. See the stories with the soundtrack on YouTube.