2010 Deutsche Grammophon / Universal Music Korea

ELIZABETH JOY ROE'S FOREWORD TO IMAGES POETIQUES

Images speak volumes, filling in where words leave off.  They are both figments of our imagination and the source of our imaginings.  Images from art, nature, and everyday life can add dimension, color, and nuance to our incarnate experience, compelling us to shift paradigms and to see more truly.  Perhaps the most powerful images are those invisible from the outside, the ones witnessed in our mind’s eye: our dreams, memories, visions.  Here we might catch glimpses of the ultimate and the eternal, which radiantly pierce through the penumbral mysteries surrounding us, elevating us to greater heights of understanding. 

The music on this album offers a kaleidoscopic synthesis of fin de siècle perspectives, from Liszt’s unabashed Romanticism to Ravel’s modernist leanings.  Imagery from paintings, folklore, and literary narratives permeate these pieces.  Most importantly, each work pulsates with the composer’s personal impressions, passions, and meditations, shedding light on our own humanity, and inspiring us to explore the intersections between fantasy and reality, the individual and the collective, and impermanence and infinity.  This music encapsulates a fascinating era in history, but its resonance is timeless: it opens our eyes and hearts to glorious and astounding realms, awakens us to essential truths, and exalts images seen and unseen.