Program Notes

NICOLAI ANDREIEVICH RIMSKY-KORSAKOV

BORN: March 18, 1844. Tishkin, near Novgorod, Russia

DIED: June 21, 1908. Liubensk, near Saint Petersburg

COMPOSED: Conceived of in the winter of 1887-88 with the four movements completed on July 16, 23, and 28, and August 7, 1888

WORLD PREMIERE: November 3, 1888. Rimsky-Korsakov conducted at one of the Russian Symphony Concerts at the Club of Nobility, Saint Petersburg

US PREMIERE: February 2, 1897. Emil Paur conducted the Boston Symphony

SFS PERFORMANCES: FIRST—February 28, 1913, by Henry Hadley led. MOST RECENT—February 2014. Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos conducted

INSTRUMENTATION: 2 flutes and piccolo, 2 oboes and English horn, 2 clarinets in A, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, cymbals, snare drum, bass drum, tambourine, tam-tam, harp, and strings

DURATION: About 46 mins

THE BACKSTORY I would guess that ninety-nine percent of Rimsky-Korsakov performances in this country are accounted for by three works, the Capriccio espagnol, Scheherazade, and the Russian Easter Overture, all written within the space of about a year and a half in 1887 and 1888. In fact, these works virtually marked the end of Rimsky-Korsakov’s career as a composer of orchestral music. In 1889, he determined to devote most of his energies to writing for the theater.

As a boy and young man, Rimsky-Korsakov, many of whose ancestors had been military or naval men, planned a life in the navy. Nicolai’s musical gifts had also manifested early, and by the time he began cadet school, he was already a fairly good pianist and an eager if unpolished composer. When he was seventeen, his piano teacher introduced him to Mily Balakirev, intellectual leader of the group of nationalists—himself, Borodin, César Cui, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov—who came to be known as the Mighty Handful or the Mighty Five.

The still teenaged Rimsky-Korsakov fell under Balakirev’s spell immediately. He continued his naval pursuits for a time—not without profit, because his travels to the United States (during the Civil War), the Near East, and Asia were immensely stimulating to his imagination—but the first important step toward turning him into a real composer had been taken. He was still, in his own description, “an officer-dilettante who sometimes enjoyed playing and listening to music,” but with his return to Russia and renewed contact with Balakirev, his proper destiny became clear to him.

He became the complete musical citizen. He composed, but he also conducted, taught, and was a generous friend to colleagues. In the winter of 1887-88, he was bringing into performable shape the unfinished opera Prince Igor by his recently deceased friend Alexander Borodin. While engaged with this music, with its east-of-Saint-Petersburg flavor, he conceived the idea of Scheherazade.

From the beginning, he could not quite make up his mind about the balance between the programmatic and the purely musical elements. How much Arabian Nights, how much just music? And while programmatic elements were undoubtedly present in Scheherazade and played an important part in the shaping of the work, Rimsky-Korsakov did not want his listeners to be distracted by being glued to extra-musical detail.

He headed the score with this preface:

The Sultan Shahriar, convinced of the duplicity and infidelity of all women, vowed to slay each of his wives after the first night. The Sultana Scheherazade, however, saved her life by the expedient of recounting to the Sultan a succession of tales over a period of one thousand one nights. Overcome by curiosity, the monarch postponed the execution of his wife from day to day, and ended by renouncing his sanguinary resolution altogether.

The composer’s own thoughts about Scheherazade as expressed in his memoirs are worth attending to:

 The program I had been guided by . . . consisted of separate, unconnected episodes and pictures from The Arabian Nights, scattered through all four movements of my suite. . . . The unifying thread consisted of the brief introductions to the first, second, and fourth movements and the intermezzo in movement three, written for violin solo and delineating Scheherazade herself as she tells her wondrous tales to the stern Sultan. The final conclusion of the fourth movement serves the same artistic purpose.

In this manner, developing the musical material quite freely, I had in view the creation of an orchestral suite in four movements, closely knit by the community of its themes and motifs, yet presenting, as it were, a kaleidoscope of fairy-tale images and designs of Oriental character. . .  

In composing Scheherazade I meant the hints [conveyed by the titles] to direct the listener’s fancy but slightly on the path which my own fancy had traveled. All I had desired was that the listener, if he liked my piece as symphonic music, should carry away the impression that it is beyond doubt an Oriental narrative of some numerous and varied fairy-tale wonders and not merely four pieces played one after another and composed on the basis of themes common to all four movements.

THE MUSIC Scheherazade is a wonderful piece. It is full of glorious solo opportunities. Its vitality, the charm of its tunes, and the effortless brilliance of its orchestration never fail to make an impression and to give delight.

One of the programmatic elements of which we can be certain is the portrayal of Sultan and Sultana in the first minute. The unison and fortissimo proclamation that opens the work obviously represents the former, a brutal psychopath. Fairy-tale chords for soft woodwinds lead to the seductive and flattering violin-voice of Scheherazade herself.

And now the symphonic suite can begin. The first movement is spacious music—call it Prelude, call it “The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship,” or simply Allegro non troppo. The measures are broad, and the pace of harmonic change is majestic. The Sultan’s motif is the principal one; the Scheherazade violin also returns, and in a manner that suggests she is doing more than just telling stories. Development is cleverly and effectively mixed with simple statement and restatement. The chapter ends dreamily.

Scheherazade herself begins the second movement. After her brief introduction, the bassoon leads off with a wistful theme. The intensity is heightened when the oboe takes this melody, but the violins change its character to grazioso. Brass fanfares erupt, leading to one of Rimsky-Korsakov’s most imaginative orchestral inventions, a clarinet recitative over the unmeasured strumming of plucked strings. Fanfares again open the way to the second main part of the movement, a swift, feather-light scherzo that is both reminiscent of Berlioz’s “Queen Mab” and prophetic of Dukas’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. The fanfares return, as does the recitative, this time declaimed by the bassoon, and the movement makes its way to a brilliant ending.

The tender third movement returns to the more leisurely gait of the first. It is a lovely flow of lyric invention, scored with remarkable finesse, the writing for quiet percussion being especially charming. Scheherazade has her say, but it is with the lyric main theme that the movement comes to its gentle and smiling close.

The finale opens much as the first movement did, with the contrast of Sultan and Sultana, though this version is more elaborate. The music, after this double introduction, is quick and exciting. With the appearance of the Sultan’s theme, grandly declaimed by the trombones against swirling strings, the suite arrives at its rhetorical high point. It subsides into sinister shudderings, punctuated by a single stroke on the tam-tam—a nice instance of the composer’s elegant economy with all his colorful percussion. Appropriately enough, it is Scheherazade who has the last word. When her sinuous melody returns, her mode of address is sweet and capricious. Then she repeats way down on the fourth string and the music climbs, slowly, slowly, into the ether. This is going to be the first secure night’s sleep the lady has had in almost three years.—Michael Steinberg

Michael Steinberg, the San Francisco Symphony’s Program Annotator from 1979 to 1999 and a contributing writer to our program book until his death in 2009, was one of the nations’s pre-eminent writers on music. We are privileged to continue publishing his program notes. His books are available at the Symphony Store in Davies Symphony Hall.

(April 2019)