From silken Samarcand to cedared Lebanon—
grant all this: there remains the superb sea music with the rolling billows, the tossing, laboring vessel, the final crash and wild farewell. There is more than a constant display of fancy or imagination. The wonder is, as a matter of technic, how Rimsky-Korsakov succeeds in casting his spell with analogous themes constantly varied. Nor is this due solely to the surprising, masterly, and entrancing instrumentation.
Scheherazade, with the Easter Overture, was composed in the summer of 1881 at Neyzhgovitsy on the shore of Lake Cheryemenyetskoye. It was produced at St. Petersburg in the course of the following concert season.
The suite, dedicated to Vladimir Stassov, is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes (and English horn), two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, kettledrums, snare drum, bass drum, tambourine, cymbals, triangle, tam-tam, harp, and strings.
The following programme is printed in Russian and French on a fly-leaf of the score:
“The Sultan Schahriar, persuaded of the falseness and the faithlessness of women, has sworn to put to death each one of his wives after the first night. But the Sultana Scheherazade saved her life by interesting him in tales which she told him during one thousand and one nights. Pricked by curiosity, the Sultan put off his wife’s execution from day to day, and at last gave up entirely his bloody plan.
“Many marvels were told Schahriar by the Sultana Scheherazade. For her stories the Sultana borrowed from poets their verses, from folk songs their words; and she strung together tales and adventures.”
Rimsky-Korsakov has this to say about Scheherazade in My Musical Life, translated into English by J. A. Joffe:
“The programme I had been guided by in composing Scheherazade consisted of separate, unconnected episodes and pictures from The Arabian Nights: the fantastic narrative of the Prince Kalandar, the Prince and the Princess, the Baghdad festival, and the ship dashing against the rock with the bronze rider upon it. The unifying thread consisted of the brief introductions to Movements I, II, and IV, and the intermezzo in Movement III, written for violin solo, and delineating Scheherazade herself as telling her wondrous tales to the stern Sultan. The conclusion of Movement IV serves the same artistic purpose.