# Rimsky-Korsakov Scheherazade



## emiellucifuge

This is one of my favorite pieces of music, for those of you who dont know - its some form of orchestral music in five movements. The fifth movement is extremely famous, being the Flight of the Bumblebee.

What do you all think of this piece? What story is it based on? Can anyone tell me anything more about its history/composition?


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## Cyclops

Yes its a fine piece of music,but the Flight of the Bumblebee is a seperate piece.
As for the story well its to do with the tale of A Thousand and One Nights.


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## emiellucifuge

Flight of the Bumblebee is a separate piece? I must have mis-labeled it - please exclude it from the discussion.

Im not familiar with the story of A Thousand Nights

Edit: I realise its on the same CD as Scheherazade but there is a little asterisk pointing to a note which says it comes from a Tale of Tsar Saltan?


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## Mongoose

I still listen to Beecham's recording of this work. I bought my first copy of it back around 1968,and it came on the original white and gold HMV label. On cd,if you listen on speakers or headphones with a good bass response,you can hear the underground trains which passed beneath Kingsway Hall,where the recording was made!
The performance is first class,and has yet to be beaten,although Ansermet, Reiner,Monteux,and Ozawa are also my favourites.
The Flight of the Bumblebee has been played on every musical instrument over the years,and must be out of buzz by now!
Mongoose.


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## emiellucifuge

Thats quite funny mongoose!

Yes I agree about the bumblebee, ive seen hundreds of versions including one by the bassist of heavy metal band Manowar, played on a special bass guitar which is called a picollo bass apparently.


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## SixFootScowl

I just discovered this piece and find it very interesting musically and that without any idea of the story behind it. It is 4 movements of course since the fifth movement mentioned in the first post is in fact a different work. I have Scheherazade on this Fricsay set with Rudolf Schulz on violin:









I don't know how to classify this piece. It is not a symphony, it is not a concerto (or it it).


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## techniquest

I've been listening to Scheherazade for nearly 50 years and still enjoy it enormously. The story is based on 1001 nights wherein the Sultan Shahrier, convinced that women are always unfaithful, decides to put each of his wives to death after the first night. However, his wife the Sultana Scheherazade keeps herself alive by enchanting the Sultan with stories over the period of 1001 nights after which he decided to allow her to live. 
I have heard many recordings of the work over the years, but really enjoy the Gergiev one with the Kirov Orchestra on Philips. However, for a very unusual take on the final movement, have look at this moment from a performance with Leif Segerstam


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## Barbebleu

Florestan said:


> I just discovered this piece and find it very interesting musically and that without any idea of the story behind it. It is 4 movements of course since the fifth movement mentioned in the first post is in fact a different work. I have Scheherazade on this Fricsay set with Rudolf Schulz on violin:
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> 
> I don't know how to classify this piece. It is not a symphony, it is not a concerto (or it it).


Tone poem like Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra, Don Juan, Til Eulenspiegel etc.


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## SixFootScowl

techniquest said:


> I've been listening to Scheherazade for nearly 50 years and still enjoy it enormously. The story is based on 1001 nights wherein the Sultan Shahrier, convinced that women are always unfaithful, decides to put each of his wives to death after the first night. However, his wife the Sultana Scheherazade keeps herself alive by enchanting the Sultan with stories over the period of 1001 nights after which he decided to allow her to live. ...


Great story. Surprised it has not been made into an opera, or has it?


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## gardibolt

This spring we saw the Chicago Symphony doing Scheherazade; we were in the 3rd row in front of the principal cellist but had a good eye line to the concertmaster. Just absolutely stunning, beginning to end.


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## Animal the Drummer

Beecham's is a superb recording and the best I know, but I also have an LP of a decent performance conducted by a very distant relative of mine, Lovro von Matacic, to which I maintain a degree of loyalty for obvious reasons!


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## realdealblues

Scheherazade is a fun piece indeed. I think of it more as a tone poem as well I guess.

My top 3 favorite recordings:

Leonard Bernstein/New York Philharmonic
Kirill Kondrashin/Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
Fritz Reiner/Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Those 3 performances are about as electrifying as they come.


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## Pugg

realdealblues said:


> Scheherazade is a fun piece indeed. I think of it more as a tone poem as well I guess.
> 
> My top 3 favorite recordings:
> 
> Leonard Bernstein/New York Philharmonic
> Kirill Kondrashin/Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
> Fritz Reiner/Chicago Symphony Orchestra
> 
> Those 3 performances are about as electrifying as they come.


Amen to this. :tiphat:


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## Delicious Manager

I wish we in the English-speaking world would spell it _Sheherazade_; the 'c' is completely superfluous in English (although necessary in German. English isn't German).


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## Delicious Manager

My version of choice (however it's spelt!):


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## Triplets

The Reiner/CSO Recording is the one to have. it has been available in multiple formats.
I wouldn't worry about classifying it. Symphonic Fantasy will do. Just enjoy


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## DavidA

Stokowski recorded the work several times. Good if you want it in glowing technicolour!


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## R3PL4Y

I have always seen it classified as a symphonic suite. This is what the music said on it when I performed it.


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## Pugg

R3PL4Y said:


> I have always seen it classified as a symphonic suite. This is what the music said on it when I performed it.


Good to know small details.


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## Marinera

When I listen to Scheherazade, I go to Reiner's version usually. I read the book when I was small, never had much patience with movies, some of them only, so I've never managed to see a whole movie yet, and I agree that it would make a great opera, strange how it's been overlooked. I found only a ballet adaptation mentioned. 

I prefer stories within the story here.. but I've always been more into adventure, than into melodramatic love stories. This particular story - homicidal husband, unfaithfull wife, lovers galore, then dead lovers and wives.. and dead wives probably in triple or quadruple digits.. aah.. who knows probably lovers of the first dead wife were in those immoderate numbers too... Don't know does it not make half of the Sultan's country's population, I wonder. Sultan was on the verge of running out of the subjects to rule and kill, when here comes selfless, smart and brave Scheherezade and earns almost instant sainthood right there. She spins one exciting story after another exciting story for the thousand nights, that's close to three years by the way, runs out of the stories to tell, and oh joy - sultan doesn't kill her. She lived through a psychological hell for over 2.5 years and now she is awarded a lifetime of martyrdom of being married to a serial killer, with probably any number of other bad habits, overshadowed of course by the glaringly obvious one...That much excitement cannot be good for a person.


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## Pat Fairlea

By chance, I was listening to Scheherazade in the car recently, as broadcast by Classic FM (a UK-based radio channel). Somehow, the conductor and orchestra contrived to turn this brilliant, glittering music into something drab and routine. I think the announcer said it was the Vienna Phil, but I was in traffic by then and a bit preoccupied. It was a salutory reminder of how much damage a disinterested performance can do to a fine piece of music. And a reminder to me not to listen to good music while driving!


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## Marinera

Deleted , duplicate


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## Marinera

As a side note, though it is not classical, I've just recalled there is a song by Sparks called 'Scheherazade', it conveys much drama in a few minutes.

The description of a ballet choreography is fascinating. From Wikipedia:



> A ballet adaptation of Scheherazade premiered on June 4, 1910, at the Opéra Garnier in Paris by the Ballets Russes. The choreography for the ballet was by Michel Fokine and the libretto was from Fokine and Léon Bakst.
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> This ballet provoked exoticism by showing a masculine Golden Slave, danced by Nijinsky, seducing Zobeide, danced by Rubinstein, who is one of the many wives of the Shah. Nijinsky was painted gold and is said to have represented a phallus and eroticism is highly present in the orgiastic scenes played out in the background. Controversially, this was one of the first instances of a stage full of people simulating sexual activity. Nijinsky was short and androgynous but his dancing was powerful and theatrical.
> 
> When the Shah returns and finds his wife in the Golden Slave's embrace, he sentences to death all of his cheating wives and their respective lovers. It is rumored that in this death scene, Nijinsky spun on his head. The ballet is not centered around codified classical ballet technique, but rather around sensuous movement in the upper body and the arms. Exotic gestures are used as well as erotic back bends that expose the ribs and highlight the chest. Theatrics and mime play a huge role in the story telling.
Click to expand...

Ah, he excecuted his whole harem, don't remember that or other wives mentioned in my book. Not surprising really. The numbers then really should run into thousands. Interesting what he did with all his numerous children he probably had, probably, disinherited or turned out on the streets the truck load of them, like the vindicative man he was, he didn't care for the innocent which was obvious from all the following virginal sacrifice in the story.


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## Enthusiast

I love Scheherazade - some buffs are snotty about it but I love it. I agree with those who point us towards the Beecham and Reiner recordings. Kondrashin's is great, too. But it is a work that comes out of quite a number of recordings by less well known orchestras and conductors: Bakals with the Malaysian Phil is an example.


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## geralmar

Pat Fairlea said:


> By chance, I was listening to Scheherazade in the car recently, as broadcast by Classic FM (a UK-based radio channel). Somehow, the conductor and orchestra contrived to turn this brilliant, glittering music into something drab and routine. I think the announcer said it was the Vienna Phil, but I was in traffic by then and a bit preoccupied. It was a salutory reminder of how much damage a disinterested performance can do to a fine piece of music. And a reminder to me not to listen to good music while driving!


There is a good chance the recording you heard was conducted by Andre Previn. Reviews I read were distinctly tepid.

My first Scheherazade was a budget LP with Hans-Jurgen Walther and a Hamburg orchestra. After I saw The 7th Voyage of Sinbad I was looking for something I hoped would sound like Bernard Herrmann. My "imprint version," however, was Eugene Goosens with the LSO. I've collected several dozen recordings in the decades since. Curiously, my favorite recording is whichever one I'm listening to at the time.

I used to sneak the Richard Burton translation of A Thousand and One Nights out of my father's library. The stories are quite risqué when you're twelve.


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## Pat Fairlea

geralmar said:


> There is a good chance the recording you heard was conducted by Andre Previn. Reviews I read were distinctly tepid.
> 
> My first Scheherazade was a budget LP with Hans-Jurgen Walther and a Hamburg orchestra. After I saw The 7th Voyage of Sinbad I was looking for something I hoped would sound like Bernard Herrmann. My "imprint version," however, was Eugene Goosens with the LSO. I've collected several dozen recordings in the decades since. Curiously, my favorite recording is whichever one I'm listening to at
> 
> I used to sneak the Richard Burton translation of A Thousand and One Nights out of my father's library. The stories are quite risqué when you're twelve.


Thanks for the identification. Previn? He was clearly having a rare off-day.


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