GERGIEV/ VIENNA PHILHARMONIC - :SCHEHERAZADE

SCHEHERAZADE

VIENNA PHILHARMONIC

ORCHESTRATED REGENT: VALERY GERGIEV

SONGWRITER: NIKOLAI RIMSKY-KORSAKOV

BASED: ONE THOUS AND ONE NIGHTS

COMPOSED: 1888

MOVEMENTS: FOUR

PRESENTATION: SALZBURG FESTIVAL 2005
COUNTRY: RUSSIA

ALBUM: SHERAZADE

LABEL: RECORDING LOCATION: MARIINSKY THEATRE, ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA

GENRE: CLASSICAL ORCHESTRA

YEAR: 2005

Scheherazade (Russian: Шехерaзада, Shekherazada in transliteration), Op. 35, is a symphonic suite composed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1888 and based on One Thousand and One Nights, sometimes known as The Arabian Nights. This orchestral work combines two features typical of Russian music and of Rimsky-Korsakov in particular: dazzling, colorful orchestration and an interest in the East, which figured greatly in the history of Imperial Russia, as well as orientalism in general. It is considered Rimsky-Korsakov's most popular work.

Background: During the winter of 1887, as he worked to complete Alexander Borodin's unfinished opera Prince Igor, Rimsky-Korsakov decided to compose an orchestral piece based on pictures from One Thousand and One Nights as well as separate and unconnected episodes. After formulating musical sketches of his proposed work, he moved with his family to the Glinki-Mavriny dacha, in Nyezhgovitsy along the Cheryemenyetskoye Lake (near present day Luga, in Leningrad Oblast. Though the dacha where he stayed was destroyed by the Germans during World War II, its location was approximately 58°37'39.7"N 29°55'02.8"E). During the summer there he finishedScheherazade and the Russian Easter Festival Overture. Notes in his autograph orchestral score show that the former was completed between June 4 and August 7, 1888. Scheherazade consisted of a symphonic suite of four related movements that form a unified theme. It was written to produce a sensation of fantasy narratives from the Orient.

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 Scheherazade because it brought to everyone’s mind the fairy-tale wonders of Arabian Nights and the East in general.

The Blue Sultana by Léon Bakst