I. Largo e maestoso – Allegro non troppo (The Sea and Sindbad’s Ship)
II. Lento – Andantino – Allegro molto – Vivace scherzando – Allegro molto ed animato (The Kalendar Prince)
III. Andantino quasi allegretto (The Young Prince and the Princess)
IV. Allegro molto – Vivo – Allegro non troppo maestoso – Tempo come I (Festival at Baghdad; The Sea; The Ship Goes to Pieces on a Rock; Conclusion)

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844–1908) was a Russian composer who is best known internationally nowadays for three orchestral works: Capriccio espagnol, the Russian Easter Festival Overture, and Scheherazade. All written between 1887 and 1888, they exemplify an artistic direction taken during the late 19th century that was reacting against the influence of Western European composers on Russian music. In 1860, Rimsky-Korsakov joined a circle of predominantly amateur composers (he himself had a parallel career as a naval officer) called the Moguchaia kucha (The Mighty Handful), who sought to create a distinctly “Russian” music. They emphasized incorporating Russian folk idioms, including traditional melodies, harmonies, and folk-art topics, as well as aspects of Orientalism into their works. They also took up the concept of program music—compositions based on extramusical topics and narratives—over the formalist approach using Austro-German structures and techniques.

Scheherazade from 1888 is a symphonic suite based on several stories that Rimsky-Korsakov selected and adapted from The Arabian Nights, a collection of tales “from the East” that had been translated and published by Antoine Galland in the early 18th century. Though he used them as inspiration to compose the suite, Rimsky-Korsakov initially gave the movements abstract titles; only later did he define them explicitly, at the advice of others, but they remain unpublished in the score. As he explained:

My aversion for seeking too definite a program in my composition led me subsequently (in the new edition) to do away with even those hints of it which had lain in the headings of each movement, like The Sea; Sindbad’s Ship; the Kalendar’s Narrative; and so forth. In composing Scheherazada I meant these hints to direct but slightly the hearer’s fancy on the path which my own fancy had travelled, and to leave more minute and particular conceptions to the will and mood of each.

Rimsky-Korsakov further noted that one should “carry away the impression that it is beyond doubt an oriental narrative of some numerous and varied fairy-tale wonders.” For the orchestra, Scheherazade is a splendid showcase for its musicians, many of whom are given lavish solos to bring this fantastical realm to musical life.

Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade uses eastern methods of form and structure, as musicologist Nasser Al-Taee has pointed out, “where cyclicism, repetition, and symbolism play an important role in establishing various layers of the story.” The outer layer is that of the drama of Scheherazade and her husband, Sultan Shahriyar. As the story goes, since discovering that his first wife was unfaithful to him, Shahriyar took up the gruesome practice of sleeping with virgins and then murdering them the next morning, thinking it will protect him from further infidelity. Hoping to break him of his ghastly habit and prolong her own life, his new wife Scheherazade seeks to placate him with her talent for artful narration, through regaling and seducing him with tales. By way of introduction, at the opening of the piece, you’ll hear two contrasting themes that represent the characters of Sultan Shahriyar and Scheherazade, respectively: firstly, a stern theme forcefully intoned in unison by clarinets, bassoons, trombones, and tuba; then, a delicate, improvisatory passage for solo violin, accompanied by the harp. Listen for how these themes return throughout the piece, as Scheherazade responds to her demanding husband with various stories, which form the inner layer of this work.

After the introduction, Scheherazade, using the Sultan’s theme, begins to tell the tale of Sindbad, a sailor who embarks on a series of adventures. Overtop arpeggios that evoke the swelling of the sea’s waves, the theme undergoes many variations, as if each one is the telling of another one of Sindbad’s escapades. Partway through, Scheherazade disrupts the story’s progress with a filigree variation of her melody that then triggers a magnificent blossoming of orchestral sonority and volume. After it peaks, the mood becomes tranquil, and solo cello muses on fragments of the Sultan’s theme, now more questioning and curious than with the threat of force. Scheherazade answers with her filigree melody, generating a build to another mighty climax. Suddenly, it becomes tranquil again, and the Sultan’s theme, now seemingly soothed, is passed from flute to clarinet to strings, after which the movement ends quietly. 

Scheherazade next introduces the tale of a prince, who, to seek out wisdom, disguises himself as a wandering Kalendar dervish, as portrayed by a plaintive tune for solo bassoon over a double-bass drone. Oboe, strings, and woodwinds take up the melody in turn, each time with a gradual increase in tempo in the characteristic style of the Sufis’ whirling dance. The dance winds down…then, an outburst from the depths; fierce fanfares, a variant of the Sultan’s theme, sound in the brass, while the strings shudder as if terrified. A solo clarinet cadenza interrupts the whirling dance melody, but the Sultanic fanfares resume, and the music becomes a strange, comic march. After solo bassoon takes up the clarinet’s cadenza, the tune becomes a vigorous dance in the strings. Later, harp glissandos instigate an abrupt change of atmosphere to an otherworldly one, with solo flute, horn, violin, and muted horn playing wistful fragments of the dance tune. A final reminiscence from solo cello activates an orchestral crescendo that accelerates to the finish.

The third movement evokes the love story of the young prince and the princess. Violins first sing a heartfelt melody, perhaps the princess expressing tender feelings towards her lover, to which the prince responds with mutual affection (the song repeated by the cellos). In between, rhapsodic flights for clarinet, and later, flute, add sensuous “Oriental” flair to lush orchestral sonorities. In the central section, the melody becomes a charming dance, tinged with the musical timbres of “the East”—the glinting and shimmering sounds of triangle, tambourine, and cymbals. After the violins return with the main melody, now richly embellished, Scheherazade herself enters the story, with solo violin playing her theme. It’s then combined with the love theme of the movement, becoming ever more voluptuous—perhaps she is reminding the Sultan of when they first fell in love—before closing with contented warmth.

Shahriyar’s motto returns, now fierce and fast, at the beginning of the finale, shocking us out of the earlier reverie. Scheherazade tries to soothe him, calmly at first, but after a second extended outburst of fury, her theme is restated more forcefully, given weight by triple-stopped chords. An energetic episode ensues, with flutes introducing a mesmerizing tune that builds in volume as violins join in, then the woodwinds, and finally evolving to rapid-fire fanfares in the brass. Soon, elements from the other movements/stories are thrown into the mix—the theme of the Kalendar prince, the lilting dance of the young prince and the princess (a fragment of which turns into brass calls), and motives associated with Sindbad (a rhythmic variation of the Sultan’s theme). Eventually, the chaotic merriment of the Baghdad Festival culminates in a resplendent return of the theme from The Sea intoned by trombones and tuba, and the climactic crashing of Sindbad’s ship. The drama subsides and Scheherazade concludes the story. At last, Shahriyar is mollified, with his theme appearing very softly in the cellos and double basses, after which Scheherazade’s violin, climbing to ethereal heights, draws the suite to a serene conclusion.

Program note by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD