Based on an episode from Thomas Moore's epic poem Lalla Rookh, itself inspired by exotic, colourful tales taken from Persian mythology, Das Paradies und die Peri reflects the 19th-century craze for all thing Oriental. Completed in 1843, Schumann's 'secular oratorio' tells how the Peri, a legendary creature, was expelled from paradise and follows her quest to redeem herself by giving the gift that is most dear to heaven.
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