Download PROGRAM NOTES by Paul Schiavo NIKOLAI RIMSKY

PROGRAM NOTES by Paul Schiavo
NIKOLAI RIMSKY-KORSAKOV
Scheherazade, Op. 35
BORN: March 18, 1844, in Tikhvin, near Novgorod, Russia
DIED: June 21, 1908, in Lyubensk, Russia
WORK COMPOSED: 1888
WORLD PREMIERE: October 28, 1888, in Saint Petersburg. Rimsky-Korsakov conducted the
orchestra of the Russian Symphony Concerts.
“The Sultan Shakriar, convinced of the falsehood and infidelity of all women, had sworn an oath
to put to death each of his wives after the first night. But the Sultana Scheherazade saved her life
by arousing his interest in the wonderful tales she told for a thousand and one nights. She spun
miraculous stories, borrowing verses from the poets and words from folk songs, fairy tales and
accounts of strange adventures. Driven by curiosity, the Sultan postponed her execution from day
to day and finally abandoned his wicked plan.”
The rich compendium of folk tales known as Tales of Arabian Nights is one of the great collective
art works of Islamic culture, and one of the world’s literary treasures. For centuries, the
anonymous stories that comprise this anthology circulated individually throughout the Middle
East before being brought together in a single volume. The work was introduced to Europe in the
early 1700s but was not widely known until the 19th century, when a number of translations
appeared in print.
Tales of Arabian Nights has inspired a number of musical treatments. Last week, Seattle
Symphony performed a new work of this kind, John Adams’ Scheherazade.2, which looks at the
titular sultana in a modern light. Still, the most famous composition drawing its ideas from the
Arabian stories remains the symphonic suite Scheherazade by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
The idea of basing an orchestral work on various episodes from Tales of Arabian Nights came to
Rimsky-Korsakov early in 1888. Significantly, he had recently been engaged as conductor of the
Russian Symphony Concerts, an important series of orchestral programs in Saint Petersburg, and
his close contact with the orchestra that performed at these events must have prompted at least
some of the colorful instrumentation for which Scheherazade is justly famous. The composer
made sketches for the work in June of that year and finished the full score by autumn.
The work’s four movements approximate the traditional outline of a symphony, with an opening
allegro prefaced by an introduction in moderate tempo, a slow second movement, a third in the
spirit of a scherzo, and an energetic finale. Although Rimsky-Korsakov had certain scenes from
the tales in mind as he wrote the work, the music does not present a linear narrative of any of the
stories. As the composer explained in his autobiography,
The program I had been guided by in composing Scheherazade consisted of separate,
unconnected episodes from the Tales of Arabian Nights scattered through all four movements of
my suite: the sea and Sinbad’s ship, the fantastic narrative of Prince Kalender, the Prince and
Princess, the Baghdad festival, the ship dashing itself against the rock ... yet presenting, as it
were, a kaleidoscope of fairy tale images.
Indeed, Rimsky-Korsakov was so dismayed by the insistence of early listeners to try to identify
each passage with a specific character or event in the tales that he deleted all written references
to these from the final version of his score (though he retained the evocative preface, quoted at
the top of this note). In explaining his deletions of programmatic clues, the composer stated:
“My aversion to seeking too definite a program in my composition led me subsequently to do
away with even those hints of it that had lain in the headings of each movement. ... In composing
Scheherazade I meant these hints to direct but slightly the hearer’s fancy on the path that my
own fancy had traveled, and to leave more minute and particular conceptions to the will and
mood of each. All I had desired was that the hearer ... should carry away the impression that it is
beyond doubt an Oriental narrative of some numerous and varied fairy tale wonders.”
In other words, it is a general impression of the mood and tone of the Arabian tales that the
composer hoped to convey in this music, along with occasional suggestions of certain narrative
details experienced as “a kaleidoscope of fairy tale images.” Rimsky-Korsakov did admit one
point: the sinuous melody of a solo violin heard in each of the four movements “delineates
Scheherazade herself as telling her wondrous tales to her stern Sultan.” Of course, the
composition can be enjoyed as much for its purely musical qualities — its vivid melodic ideas and
brilliant orchestration — as for its evocation of mystery, exoticism and fabulous stories.
WHAT TO LISTEN FOR: With its colorful scoring and solos featuring nearly all the principal players,
Scheherazade is a superb orchestral showpiece. It begins with music of forbidding character,
harsh and threatening, a stark musical emblem for Sultan Shakriar. (This theme will, however,
undergo many transformations, and therefore take on varied character, over the course of the
piece.) No less convincing is the melodic arabesque for solo violin, representing Scheherazade.
These ideas, which constitute most of the introduction to the first movement proper, recur as
principal themes in the larger body of music that follows. A variant of the initial subject,
transformed into flowing phrases, sounds over wide-stepping accompaniment figures that rise
and fall like waves on the open ocean. (Rimsky-Korsakov initially titled this movement The Sea
and Sinbad’s Ship.) Later a violin solo recalls that of the introduction, confirming its melodic shape
as a major part of the movement. Both ideas repeat in varying contexts, and several subsidiary
themes help fill out the movement.
Rimsky-Korsakov begins the second movement by returning to the violin’s “Scheherazade” solo
from the opening moments of the piece. Solo bassoon then plays a melody whose Russian
expressiveness becomes increasingly apparent as it is repeated by solo oboe, by the violins and
finally by the woodwind choir. Suddenly the tempo slows, and trombone and then trumpet sound
an alarm. This figure, which repeats several times, derives from the Shakriar theme of the
opening movement. Remarkably, the same source yields the jaunty scherzo that follows. RimskyKorsakov eventually returns to the bassoon’s melody before concluding the movement.
Most of the third movement is built on a gentle melody stated by the string choir at the outset.
Absent at the start, the “Scheherazade” violin solo appears toward the movement’s end. The
finale returns to the themes of the opening movement, which the composer weaves into a
luminous musical tapestry that also includes the gentle theme of the third movement and a
reprise of the “Scheherazade” violin solo.
Scored for 2 flutes and piccolo (the 2nd flute doubling 2nd piccolo), 2 oboes and English horn; 2
clarinets and 2 bassoons; 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones and tuba; timpani and percussion;
harp and strings.
© 2016 Paul Schiavo