I actually don't care for a big favorite here: Scheherazade. It sounds too snake-charmer for me.
Ron,
Regarding you remarks on Scheherazade, I wonder if you would think differently of the piece if you knew the story. Perhaps you do, but for me, it's far more than a simple "snake charmer" piece of music.
The scenario, inscribed on the score, concerns the mighty and misogynous Sultan Sharyar who enjoyed his nuptial pleasures without the risk of acquiring a life-long nag by the politically-incorrect (but temptingly convenient?) expedient of having each wife executed the morning after. However, Scheherazade enchants him with wondrous tales, each of which she craftily left unfinished at the night's end. Left wanting for more, Sharyar repeatedly had to stay her execution, until in the end he finally admits defeat as he succumbs to her charms.
In actuality, it's all about the "Me Too" movement 100 years before anyone ever coined that term. It's really the story of a woman who goes from being conquered to the conquerer as she figures out how to deter the King (the Harvey Weinstein of his day) who would typically rape then kill women as he had done countless times on a nightly basis, to someone that captures the King's attention and ultimately charms the King to fall in love with her and in the end, marries the king and becomes the Queen. The tension in the music is palpable from the first time she quietly appears (the famous Scheherazade violin theme) and grows in intensity until she finally bends and breaks the King like a pretzel in the 4th movement. "Too snake-charmer"...? Well buddy, you should hear it with my narration! What is going on in those snake charmer scenes is not for the faint of heart!! This is, at its conclusion, an intense and lurid sex play, plain and simple. Scheherazade basically charms this guy with stories in which he places the Sultan as the featured characters in heroic escapades which is really a set-up for dropping him like a stone in the last movement as she finally vanquishes his outsized ego with her seduction. She ultimately triumphs in the end as the King bends to her will and not the other way around.
It is one of my all-time favorite pieces of music because of the way Rimsky-Korsakov tells the story with music. The other reason I love it is because while Rimsky-Korsakov was considered mostly a B+ composer, he was widely recognized as an A+ orchestrator and the orchestration of Scheherazade is a flat out masterpiece. He uses every conceivable orchestral section to its maximum advantage as he tells the story with music. It's as if they they all have speaking parts in the story! Rimsky remains the Master Magician of orchestration, surpassing even Wagner and Berlioz (whose
Treatise on Orchestration taught him the art). His best work is utterly unrivalled in the quality of its scoring - entrancing sounds conjured by the very
simplest of means. The music of
Scheherazade is like a magic carpet: it can transport you to another world.
A great summary of the musical details telling the story by movement can be found on MusicWeb International:
The Sea and Sinbad's Ship (Largo e Maestoso - Allegro non troppo) Two memorable mottos represent the protagonists: “Sharyar”, majestic and fearsome on bass strings and heavy brass, and “Scheherazade”, sinuously seductive on solo violin over harp arpeggios. The movement alternates three climactic passages predominantly scored for strings and brass, casting “Sharyar” in the role of Sinbad, with three calm twilit episodes featuring both mottos. The scoring of the two interstitial episodes, otherwise practically identical, is breathtaking in its simple ingenuity: in the second episode the solo 'cello swaps places with the horn, likewise clarinet with flute, while oboe and solo violin stay put.
The Tale of the Kalendar Prince (Lento - Andante) The Kalendars were wandering beggars, for some superstitious reason fêted as royalty. The movement is a ternary form (ABA) kaleidoscope of increasingly colourful variations, making atmospheric use of string tremolandos and “thrummings”, and characteristically “pricking” textures with sharper sounds. “Scheherazade” weaves her spell to introduce the A theme - half dancing, half declamatory - on the only woodwind not yet heard solo: the bassoon (resolving a sort of “dissonance””). The B theme is based on “Sharyar”, first heard plucked deep in the basses, then in fierce growls and brassy fanfares. A bold march gradually emerges, bracketed by two cadenzas on the declamatory part of A. The first is for clarinet, the second (on bassoon) initiates the final section, containing the most exquisite scoring of the entire work. “Sharyar” reappears, low down, generating a huge crescendo to a knockout close.
The Young Prince and Princess (Andantino quasi Allegretto) Sheherezade invents a story of young love, if you wish - Rimsky provided scant clues: the sumptuous main theme (flowing strings) he identified with the Prince, a brief counter-subject (rippling clarinet) with the Princess, and at the central allegretto he suggested, “They carry the Princess on a palanquin” (covered carriage consisting of a large box carried on two horizontal poles by four or six bearers). Again, this is a “ternary/variations” form. The first section rings the changes on string textures tinted by added wind, with contrasting solo woodwind timbres. The allegretto, one of those wonderful oriental dances, is just an upbeat variation of the same material, where the snare-drum part is played on more than the snare-drum. A resounding trumpet-led rubato reinstates tempo primo for a rhapsodic closing section where solo instruments predominate, and “Scheherazade” embroiders the tale. The codetta is particularly captivating, woodwind swirl over string pizzicati and scintillating percussion: what images
that conjures!
Festival at Baghdad - The Sea - Shipwreck on a Rock surmounted by a Bronze Warrior - Conclusion (Allegro molto) The orchestration reaches a peak of virtuosity, inevitably with less subtlety as the big guns are drawn to blast huge splashes of poster-colour. Paralleling the work's beginning, the introduction finds “Sharyar” now gruffly impatient (grabbing first whack on the bass drum), and “Scheherazade” correspondingly more animated. The Festival is, loosely, a “rondo/variations”: AB[AC]ABA, where [C], developing the Kalendar fanfare, hijacks the second [A]'s climax. The first and third occurrences of [A], a skittering dance, whip up a blaze of crackling trumpets and booming tuttis -these last based on the the Kalendar Prince's bassoon tune. "B" is the “palanquin” allegretto, liquidly re-scored. The final [A] builds manically, trumpets triple-tonguing like mad, only for the scene to cut cinematographically to Sinbad's storm-tossed ship, which shudders (theme stuttering in basses) and breaks (tamtam!). This is the zenith of the piece, and is a metaphor for the moment that Scheherazade finally breaks the Sultan's massive ego! In the stunned calm that follows, one recognises, through the thematic identity, that this symbolises Sharyar's rising passion for his enchantress and cataclysmic acquiescence to the superiority of woman (or at least this
particular woman). Scheherazade finally screws Sharyar's brains out, but she is in total control, not him!
Anyway, I couldn't help comment about the "snake charmer" reference. Perhaps these insights will give you a new appreciation of the piece, which is truly extraordinary.
Marty