Overture Magazine - 2018-19 Season BSO_Overture_MAR_APR | Page 18

SCHEHERAZADE
DOWNTOWN
BALTIMORE
THE CITY
IS IN
YOUR
POCKET.
she is tried by a court of religious
zealots (‘Scheherazade and the Men
with Beards’), during which the men
argue doctrine among themselves
and rage and shout at her only to
have her calmly respond to their
accusations; and a final ‘escape, flight
and sanctuary,’ which must be the
archetypal dream of any woman
importuned by a man or men.
“At the same time, Scheherazade.2
is also a virtuoso romantic symphony-
concerto on the grand scale that
acknowledges its predecessors in works
by Sibelius, Prokofiev and Berg.
“I composed the piece specifically
for Leila Josefowicz, who has been my
friend and champion of my music (and
many other composers) for nearly
15 years. Together we’ve performed my
Violin Concerto and my concerto for
amplified violin, The Dharma at Big
Sur, many times. This work is a true
collaboration and reflects a creative
dialogue that went back and forth for
well over a year…Leila struck me as
the perfect embodiment of that kind of
empowered strength and energy that a
modern Scheherazade would possess.”
Instrumentation: Two flutes, piccolo,
two oboes, English horn, two clarinets,
bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon,
four horns, two trumpets, three trombones,
percussion, cimbalom, two harps, celesta,
two harps and strings.
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SCHEHERAZADE
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Born in Tikhvin, Russia, March 18, 1844;
died in Lyubensk near St. Petersburg, Russia,
June 21, 1908
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s
Scheherazade is as intoxicating and
seductive as the alluring storyteller
for whom it is named. A joy for both
audiences and musicians, it is music
to make one fall in love with the
symphony orchestra itself: its power,
its delicacy and its limitless palette of
instrumental colors. What Rimsky
wrote about its companion piece
16
OV E R T U R E / BSOmusic.org
Capriccio espagnol applies equally
well here: “The opinion formed
by both critics and public that…
[it] is a magnificently orchestrated
piece —is wrong. [It] is a brilliant
composition for the orchestra. The
change of timbres, the felicitous choice
of melodic designs and figuration
patterns, exactly suiting each kind of
instrument, brief virtuoso cadenzas for
solo instruments…constitute here the
very essence of the composition and
not its garb or instrumentation.” In
fact, Scheherazade could well be called
a “concerto for orchestra,” with the
solo violin, representing the Persian
enchantress, simply the leader of a
company of individual soloists and
sections playing as ensemble soloists.
Despite his disclaimer, Rimsky
—a leader among the St. Petersburg-
based “Mighty Handful” of Russian
nationalist composers—was indeed
one of the greatest orchestrators in
history and a major influence on
orchestration in the 20th century.
Not only did he inspire his pupils
Glazunov, Prokofiev and, above all,
Stravinsky (without Rimsky we would
never have had the instrumental
brilliance of Firebird, Petrouchka
or Rite of Spring!), but also Ravel,
Debussy and Respighi.
Rimsky’s three most popular works
— the Capriccio, Scheherazade and the
Russian Easter Festival Overture —were
all composed within a year of each
other. Created during the summer of
1888, Scheherazade was inspired by
the Persian legend of the cruel Sultan
who ordered all his wives put to death
after their wedding night and of
Scheherazade who so beguiled him with
her “Thousand and One” tales that he
kept postponing her execution until
finally she won his love. But Rimsky
does not tell any of her stories in detail.
And he urged audiences not to take his
movement titles too literally: “I meant
these hints to direct slightly the hearer’s
imagination on the path which my own
fancy had traveled, and to leave more
…particular conceptions to the…mood
of each [listener].”