Valldemossa is, as the crow flies, around a thousand kilometres  from Tangiers. A considerably shorter distance is suggested  by the style of the Nocturnes of the Moroccan composer  Nabil Benabdeljalil, seasoned only lightly with North African  ornamentation. Nor will we find much of the stereotypical features  of the modal Arabic tradition—whose historical influence stretched  from Andalusia to the Punjab—in Wajdi Abou Diab’s piano cycle  Arabic Vertical Poems for Piano. The Lebanese composer has  reached deeper still, perhaps even to the era before the Prophet,  musically adapting the archaic rhythms of classical Arabic poetry.