Mehldau performs four preludes, from a thirty-seven-year span of Gabriel Faur�'s career, as well as a reduction of an excerpt from the Adagio movement of his Piano Quartet in G Minor. Here Mehldau's four compositions that Faur� inspired are presented in a group, sandwiched between two sections featuring the French composer's works. Discussing the Apr�s Faur� album in his note, Mehldau says: "If the sublime foreshadows our mortality, this music might communicate the austerity of death-Faur�'s as it approached him, but also the apprehension of our own. We find a kinship with the composer finally, in the form of a question that he tossed off into the future, to us. I have composed four pieces to accompany Faur�'s music here, to share the way I have engaged with Faur�'s question, with you, the listener."This format is similar to my After Bach project," he continues. "The connections are less overt, but Faur�'s harmonic imprint is on all four. There is also a textural influence, in terms of how he presented his musical material pianistically-he exploited the instrument's sonority masterfully, as an expressive means. So, for example, in my first 'Prelude,' melody is welded to a continuous arpeggiation, both part of it and hovering above it; in my 'Nocturne,' it is possible to hear the harkening chordal approach in the opening of Faur�'s No. 12."