[1/16/2011] Born to tell stories, Rimsky-Korsakov spins music's best yarns in "Scheherazade" (continued)

In Scene 4 of Rimsky-Korsakov's opera Sadko, the hero asks three merchant guests -- one Varangian (bass), one Hindu (tenor), and one Venetian (baritone) -- to sing about their homelands. (One of these weeks we'll come back to the Songs of the Varangian [Viking], Hindu, and Venetian Guests.) The Song of the Hindu (or Indian) Guest in time morphed, for better or worse, into the "Song of India."


ONCE WE HEAR OUR MALAYSIAN PERFORMANCE
OF THE CAPRICCIO, IT'S ON TO SCHEHERAZADE

RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Capriccio espagnol, Op. 34

i. Alborada: Vivo e strepitoso
ii. Variations: Andante con moto
iii. Alborada: Vivo e strepitoso
iv. Scene and Gypsy Song: Allegretto
v. Asturian Fandango: Vivace assai; and Coda: Presto

Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, Kees Bakels, cond. Bis, recorded November 2003

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SCHEHERAZADE: THE LEGEND

IMPORTANT NOTE TO READERS: Please don't feel obliged to study, or even read, all of the following background and commentary -- or even any of it. You're not responsible for any of this material on the midterm. It's only the listening that matters.

But the better we listen, the more we hear, and the richer the experience that's available to us. So I feel I ought to provide some possibly useful information. And as I wrote last night, I'm sure that the reams of comment on these pieces I've taken in over the years have in various fashions filtered into my relationships with the pieces. However, all of this has value only insofar as it feeds into the listening experience, directly or indirectly. Often, in fact, it's the indirect ways in which this stuff filters into our consciousness that matters most. It's a maddeningly imprecise, disorderly, and generally uncontrollable process, but what're you gonna do? This is the way the mind works.

What's more, as we're going to find out below, Rimsky-Korsakov was adamant that his symphonic suite Scheherazade doesn't attempt to tell actual stories, but rather paints sound pictures evocative of the Arabian Nights tales. Musical story-telling often plugs directly into the imagination rather than attempting to trace neat narrative lines.

Still, we really ought to know who Scheherazade is, oughtn't we? For what it's worth, here is some Wikipedia-supplied background on the legend:

Scheherazade (pronounced /ʃəˌhɛrəˈzɑːdᵊ/), sometimes Scheherazadea, Persian transliteration Shahrazad or Shahrzād (Persian: شهرزاد Šahrzād, Arabic Šahrazād), is a legendary Persian queen and the storyteller of One Thousand and One Nights.

The frame tale goes that every day Shahryar (Persian: شهريار or "king") would marry a new virgin, and every day he would send yesterday's wife to be beheaded. This was done in anger, having found out that his first wife was betraying him. He had killed one thousand such women by the time he was introduced to Scheherazade, the vizier's daughter.

In Sir Richard F. Burton's translation of The Nights, Shahrazad was described in this way:

"[Shahrazad] had perused the books, annals and legends of preceding Kings, and the stories, examples and instances of by gone men and things; indeed it was said that she had collected a thousand books of histories relating to antique races and departed rulers. She had perused the works of the poets and knew them by heart; she had studied philosophy and the sciences, arts and accomplishments; and she was pleasant and polite, wise and witty, well read and well bred."

Against her father's protestations, Scheherazade volunteered to spend one night with the King. Once in the King's chambers, Scheherazade asked if she might bid one last farewell to her beloved sister, Dinazade, who had secretly been prepared to ask Scheherazade to tell a story during the long night. The King lay awake and listened with awe as Scheherazade told her first story. The night passed by, and Scheherazade stopped in the middle of the story. The King asked her to finish, but Scheherazade said there was not time, as dawn was breaking. So, the King spared her life for one day to finish the story the next night. So the next night, Scheherazade finished the story, and then began a second, even more exciting tale which she again stopped halfway through, at dawn. So the King again spared her life for one day to finish the second story.

And so the King kept Scheherazade alive day by day, as he eagerly anticipated the finishing of last night's story. At the end of one thousand and one nights, and one thousand stories, Scheherazade told the King that she had no more tales to tell him. During these one thousand and one nights, the King had fallen in love with Scheherazade, and had three sons with her. So, having been made a wiser and kinder man by Scheherazade and her tales, he spared her life, and made her his Queen. Scheherazade is one of literatere's greatest female grifters in history.

RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Scheherazade, symphonic
suite after the Thousand and One Nights, Op. 35

From the Wikipedia article on Rimsky's Scheherazade (individual movement comments below are from the same source):

Initially, Rimsky-Korsakov intended to name the respective movements in Scheherazade: Prelude, Ballade, Adagio and Finale. However, after weighing the opinions of Anatoly Lyadov and others, as well as his own aversion to a too-definitive program, he settled upon thematic headings, based upon the tales from The Arabian Nights.

The composer deliberately made the titles vague, so that they are not associated with specific tales or voyages of Sinbad. However, in the epigraph to the finale, he does make reference to the adventure of Prince Ajib. In a later edition, he did away with titles altogether, desiring instead that the listener should hear his work only as an Oriental-themed symphonic music that evokes a sense of the fairy-tale adventure. He stated "All I desired was that the hearer, if he liked my piece as symphonic music, should carry away the impression that it is beyond a doubt an Oriental narrative of some numerous and varied fairy-tale wonders and not merely four pieces played one after the other and composed on the basis of themes common to all the four movements.” Rimsky-Korsakov went on to say that he kept the name Sheherazada because it brought to everyone’s mind the fairy-tale wonders of Arabian Nights and the East in general.

i. The Sea and Sinbad's Ship

This movement is composed of various melodies and contains a general A B C A1 B C1 form. Although each section is highly distinctive, aspects of melodic figures carry through and unite them into a movement. Although similar in form to the classical symphony, the movement is more similar to the variety of motives used in one of his previous works Antar. Antar however, used genuine Arabic melodies as opposed to Rimsky-Korsakov’s ideas of an oriental flavor.

Hermann Krebbers, violin; Concertgebouw Orchestra, Kirill Kondrashin, cond. Philips, recorded June 27-28, 1979


ii. The Tale of the Kalendar Prince

This movement follows a type of ternary theme and variation and is described as a fantastic narrative. The variations only change by virtue of the accompaniment, highlighting the Rimsky-ness in the sense of simple musical lines allowing for greater appreciation of the orchestral clarity and brightness. Inside the general melodic line, a fast section highlights changes within both tonality and structure of the fanfare motif, played by trombone and muted trumpet.

Anshel Brusilow, violin; Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded Feb. 11, 1962


iii. The Young Prince and the Young Princess

This movement is also ternary, and is considered the simplest movement in form and melodic content. The inner section is said to be based on the theme from Tamara, while the outer sections have song-like melodic content. The outer themes are related to the inner by tempo and common motif, and the whole movement is finished by a quick coda return to the inner motif, balancing it out nicely.

Hugh Maguire, violin; London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Eugene Goossens, cond. Everest, recorded 1959


iv. Festival at Baghdad; The Sea; Shipwreck (The ship goes to pieces against a rock surmounted by a bronze warrior); Conclusion

This movement ties in aspects of all the proceeding movements as well as adding some new ideas Including but not limited to: an introduction of both the beginning of the movement and the Vivace section based on Sultan Shakhriar’s theme, a repeat of the main Sheherazade violin theme, and a reiteration of the fanfare motif to portray the shipwreck. Coherence is maintained by the ordered repetition of melodies, and continues the impression of a symphonic suite, rather than separate movements. A final conflicting relationship of the subdominant minor Shakhriar theme to the tonic major cadence of the Scheherazade theme resolves in a fantastic, lyrical, and finally peaceful conclusion.

Sidney Harth, violin; Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Fritz Reiner, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Feb. 8, 1960


NOW FOR THE WHOLE THING --

Now I'm sure you want to hear the whole thing put together, and for that I thought we would go with perhaps the most famous of all Scheherazade recordings, Sir Thomas Beecham's.

RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Scheherazade, Op. 35

i. The Sea and Sinbad's Ship
ii. The Tale of the Kalendar Prince
iii. The Young Prince and the Young Princess
iv. Festival at Baghdad; The Sea; Shipwreck (The ship goes to pieces against a rock surmounted by a bronze warrior); Conclusion

Steven Staryk, violin; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Thomas Beecham, cond. EMI, recorded 1957


SHH! DON'T TELL ANYONE, BUT WE'VE GOT
A BONUS PERFORMANCE OF SCHEHERAZADE

I voiced regret above that all our Scheherazade performance slots were filled, leaving no room for the Malaysian Philharmonic, whose four-CD set of Rimsky-Korsakov orchestral works was instead represented by their Capriccio espagnol, meaning that we've got a Dutch conductor leading a Malaysian orchestra in a Russian composer's evocation of Spain. On consideration, I thought we might just sneak their Scheherazade in. Is it my imagination that it really does have a distinct flavor of the East? I'm thinking of a relaxed, sinuously singing quality. (It's well to remember that Russian cultural sensibilities have long included, voluntarily or otherwise, resonances from the East.)

RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Scheherazade, Op. 35

i. The Sea and Sinbad's Ship
ii. The Tale of the Kalendar Prince
iii. The Young Prince and the Young Princess
iv. Festival at Baghdad; The Sea; Shipwreck (The ship goes to pieces against a rock surmounted by a bronze warrior); Conclusion

Markus Gundermann, violin; Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, Kees Bakels, cond. Bis, recorded November 2002


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