(Born at Tikhvin, in the government of Novgorod, March 18, 1844; died at St. Petersburg, June 21, 1908)
SYMPHONIC SUITE, “SCHEHERAZADE” (AFTER “THE THOUSAND NIGHTS AND A NIGHT”), OP. 35
I. The Sea and Sindbad’s Ship II. The Story of the Kalandar Prince III. The Young Prince and the Young Princess IV. Festival at Baghdad. The Sea. The Ship Goes to Pieces against a Rock Surmounted by a Bronze Warrior. Conclusion
Rimsky-Korsakov wrote an argument for his score. The music is in illustration of Sindbad the Sailor, the storm at sea, the shipwreck, the tale of one of the three Kalandars, a tale of a prince and a princess. The argument is not wholly clear, and probably this was the composer’s intention. What prince and what princess? There are so many in The Thousand Nights and a Night. Who will be so rash as to name the one of the three Kalandars? In the last movement there is a festival at Baghdad, and lo, suddenly Sindbad’s ship sails to its fate.
In the ballet all this music is wedded to the story that is the prelude to the wondrous tales: the story of the two rulers, their wanton wives, and the resolve of one of the Kings to kill a spouse every morning, until Scheherazade by her charm as a narrator softens his heart. What then becomes of the graphic sea music; or that illustrative of Kalandar, prince and princess? It is not necessary to insist on the incongruity.
Unless a conductor can feel in this music the spirit of The Thousand Nights and a Night, unless he is himself a rhapsodist with admiration for the wild fancy, the humor now grotesque, now cruel, now Rabelaisian, for the sensuousness that is at times sensuality; unless there is understanding, with appreciation of the imagination that peopled the air with slaves of King Solomon’s ring, hideous afreets and space-annihilating genii, his interpretation will be that of a man who complains of endless repetitions without contrapuntal development. The music is not for the academic.
Grant that Scheherazade reeks at times of benzoin and the pastils of the harem; that it suggests:
Lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon;
Manna and dates in argosy transferred
From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one