How did musical instruments come into the world - the first wind, the first percussion, and the first string instrument? Three fairy tales - one from the mountains, one from the sea, and one from the great forest - provide us with an answer. Two of them are love stories. The third is the story of a quarrel. All lead to man taking into his hands the gift of music, which whoever listens to it 'is filled with the serenity of the water that always flows, the anticipation of the unexpected that will surely come, the vastness of the sky that travels.' [Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]