Twenty years ago this week, French-Canadian composer Claude Vivier was murdered in Paris by a teenage prostitute. “His grisly demise was the mirror opposite of his music, which often sparkles with a delicate and loving grandeur. And it endures. Most of his 48 completed pieces have been recorded… His output heightened Canada’s international stature more than any other composer’s. Dangerous living fuelled his inspiration, helping polish salacious experience into a diamond in sound. Yet it also proved his undoing.”