Three orchestral works based on literature. For his fourth recording on Albany Records, “maximalist” composer Florencio Asenjo gives us three orchestral works based on literature. The Batrachomyomachia or The Battle of the Frogs and the Mice is an anonymous ancient Greek parody of the Iliad. Palm-of-the-Hand Tales is incidental music to ten of Yasunari Kawabata’s narratives from his Palm-of-the-Hand Stories. Basile’s Pentameron frames incidental musical episodes from Giambattista Baile’s Penteramron, which was the source of famous stories by Perrault and the Grimm brothers.
