It is not necessary to listen a lot to discover the evident similarities among this work, full of touches and turns characteristic of blues, and L'Histoire du Soldat by Igor Stravinsky, so much at purely sound level as stylistic; Wynton Marsalis, more well known for his trumpet player facet than as composer, creates this instrumental piece with recitatives to be performed after that of Stravinsky, creating it under an unifier approach of the same instrumental formation and over a stupendous text written by Stanley Crouch that, also in a deliberate way, it maintains an evident relationship with the text of Ramuz that the Russian composer used. The result is magnificent, worthy of being interpreted after the mentioned masterpiece, without to be shadowed as inventive and attractive; even more, the conjunction of the written text and the magnificent performances of the narrator André De Shields, is absolutely fascinating and grant the whole work with a special really unique quality. A stupendous disk.

A Fiddler's Tale (1998) - 67:20
Wynton Marsalis (Trumpet), Musicians from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and André De Shields (Narrator)
SONY CLASSICAL SK60765 / 68'

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