Albert Roussel: The Spider's Banquet (Naxos Audio CD)  

Royal Scottish No/Deneve
The Spider's Feast:Complete Ballet/Padmavati Ballet Suites

One of Roussel’s most performed orchestral works, The Spider’s Banquet was composed during his earlier impressionistic period, and depicts the beauty and violence of insect life in a garden. Roussel’s experiences as a lieutenant in the French Navy first introduced him to Eastern influences, and the ‘opera-ballet’ Padmâvatî was inspired by his later visit to the ancient city of Chittor in Rajasthan state of western India. It uses aspects of Indian music to evoke this city’s legendary siege by the Mongols.

This is the fifth and final volume in Stéphane Denève and the RSNO’s acclaimed survey of Roussel’s orchestral works.

Stéphane Denève is the newly-appointed Chief Conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (SWR) and, since 2005, Music Director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

The first disc of their survey of the works of Albert Roussel for Naxos won a Diapason d’Or de l’année in 2007.