During the moving final scene of his film Modern Times (1936), Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) shows a picture of a man and a woman. She is crying. He moves his finger to the corner of his mouth, draws a smile, and conjures up a smile on her face. In the end they walk away, hand in hand, on their journey to the

horizon and to an unknown future. During this final image, a melody that later was given the title Smile is being played. As with many of his films, Chaplin composed the music himself.

Smile acts as the finale for the collection of works on this CD, which have at their centre a song cycle by the Belgian composer Godfried Devreese (1893–1962), written during the horrors of the First World War.