Scheherazade

The name Scheherazade immediately conjurs an Arabian Nights fantasy of flying carpets and magic lamps, geniis and princesses and beautiful palaces. These are the things that inspired Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov to write his extraordinary symphonic suite of the same name in 1888. It was a great success and remains his most popular work for orchestra. Rimsky-Korsakov was a genii himself when it came to creating orchestral sound pictures with a narrative. He considered himself really an operatic composer, and many of his operas (alas, rarely performed in the West) are based on folk tales and legends. Fantastic tales and magical beings appealed to his imagination, and nowhere is that more obvious than in Scheherazade.











There was another influence too: the sea. For Rimsky-Korsakov had spent many years at sea in the Russian navy, and the music he created for Sinbad is full of the surge and sweep and energy of the ocean.

Although he gave the four sections titles (the first is "The Sea and Sinbad's ship"), these he later withdrew, preferring the listener to be imaginative and to be swept away by an Oriental kaleidoscope of storytelling. The solo violin represents Scheherazade herself, spinning out tales for a thousand and one nights to win the love of the Sultan and so save her own life. At the end he renounces the vow he had made whereby he put to death each of his wives after just one night of marriage, a punishment upon womankind after his first wife betrayed him.




But after Rimsky-Korsakov died in 1908, the ballet impresario Diaghilev had other ideas. In 1910 he took the music out of the concert hall and into the theatre when used the suite (heavily cut) for a new ballet. Although titled Scheherazade, he used the prologue to the Arabian Nights, in which we witness the infidelity of that first Sultana (here called Zobedia), with the "Golden Slave", a role created for the legendary dancer Nijinsky. Ida Rubinstein danced the part of the Sultana, and with designs by Bakst that challanged colour theory and theatrical design to it's limits, the adult nature of the erotic storyline created a sensation. Gone in one stroke was the elegant, refined and feminine world of ballet. Here was something aggresive, masculine, sexual and violent. At the end, the sultan captures the lovers. The Golden Slave is slain. Zobedia kills herself. Scheherazade herself does not appear...

The designs are now an iconic view of Oriental splendour. Indeed Paris - where the ballet premiered - was swept up in a new fashion for hareem style drawing rooms, turbans and hareem pants, such was the influence. And the designs are superb.

But Rimsky-Korsakov's family were furious. The ballet imprinted a specific (and they felt inappropriate) story upon his suite. This was not what Rimsky-Korsakov intended at all ("Heaven forbid they would dance to my Scheherazade" he wrote just before his death). The ballet and the concert suite have both remained popular... although the ballet now seems quaint rather than shocking. I adore the music and personally find many more interesting stories hidden in it than did Diaghilev.





This autumn, on November 6th, I'm really hoping that I'll have the chance to restore the original stories (as far as possible) to Scheherazade at the annual children's concert in Hatfield. So expect to hear all about Scheherazade. See pictures of Sinbad. Discover the Kalander Prince. And most of all, introduce a child to the wonderful music of Rimsky-Korsakov... as long as we get the go ahead!