rank Martin (1890 - 1974) is probably the most significant composer to hail from Switzerland.  Profoundly influenced by both Baroque style through the work of J.S. Bach and just as strongly effected by the French composers of the turn of the century, nevertheless his music is most clearly understood as extended harmony.  Very early in his career, he rejected the modernism of the Second Viennese School to find, like many disenfranchised tonalists, a more personal form of musical expression.  The New Grove summarises his thought with the following quotation:

"Whatever the movements of the soul, the spirit, the sensibility that are manifested in one's work, and whether the state is one of anguish or even despair, one's art inevitably bears the sign of ... this liberation, this sublimation which evokes in us a finished form, and which is, I think, what is called 'beauty'."

Songs of Ariel attempts to evoke the magic associated with this benevolent spirit and endeavours to produce this effect by way of a style not dissimilar to the work of Debussy and Ravel.  Ariel's role in the Tempest is that of an audible but quite invisible guide through the haunting sounds of his song.  To bring together and reconcile very deep and very old enemies.  For those who have not had the opportunity to experience the Tempest, suffice to say that this is a comedy with a very happy ending including Ariel's own release from the benevolent servitude of the good Prospero.