Rêves d'un Marco Polo

Claude Vivier was a French Canadian composer murdered in 1983 at the age of 34 by a male prostitute he'd brought to his Parisian flat. His work was little known and seldom performed during his lifetime, but over the last two decades it's been embraced by a small coterie of admirers (including György Ligeti), and much of his “mature” output is included here under the omnibus title “Dreams of a Marco Polo,” with the figure of the explorer-merchant representing the composer's own search for a distinctive musical voice and effective expression of his ideas. The first disc contains the completed “ritual opera” Kopernikus—an hour-long visionary meditation on death and love—along with an introduction to the piece and a documentary on Vivier. The second offers, under the title “Marco Polo,” an assemblage of individual vocal and instrumental works (including the fragment of an opera on Polo) presented by conductor Reinbert de Leeuw and director Pierre Audi and concluding with Vivier's last composition, an unfinished song found in his rooms that seems to foreshadow his own murder. The music, with echoes of Vivier's teacher Stockhausen and strong evidence of his fascination with Balinese and Japanese tonalities, is frankly not terribly accessible, and those unfamiliar with late-20th-century style will be put off by the dissonance here. But the music also at times achieves an ethereal, almost ecstatic effect, with a haunting quality no doubt accentuated by the circumstances surrounding the composer's death. Presented with DTS and LCPM stereo sound options, this double-disc set is too rarefied for general collections, but it is recommended for serious music libraries and those interested in experimental modern composition. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)