Our Summer BAL 59: Rimsky-Korsakov Scheherazade

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Poor you who conducted that first listen I wonder that put you off so spectacularly .

At school it was Beecham, the LP I owned as a teenager was the Monteux (DECCA "World of the Great Classics" with the onion domes on the cover). On CD I had the Kondrashin/Concertgebouw - not to mention several broadcasts and even a couple of concerts (about fifteen years apart in the late '70s and early '90s). It isn't for want of trying and a wish to enjoy - and I wouldn't've contributed at all had pasto been able to resist the temptation to put the intemperate "snobbish" accusation in his own post. But I loathe the work, think it's dire, and will be quite happy never to hear it ever again in what I hope will be the many decades left to me.

[Pabmusic]

Daaah - da - daaaah di da daaaaaah di da ditdat ----- plink plonk

repeat until Feb 29th then insert

pom pom Paah pom pom Pee, pom pom Paah pom pom Pee; pom pom Paah pom pom Pee, pom pom Paah pom pom Pee

Then repeat the "Daah - da -daahs" again...

Oh dear! I shall never be able to listen to it again without this in my head...!

[Serial_Apologist]

Daaah - da - daaaah di da daaaaaah di da ditdat ----- plink plonk

repeat until Feb 29th then insert

pom pom Paah pom pom Pee, pom pom Paah pom pom Pee; pom pom Paah pom pom Pee, pom pom Paah pom pom Pee

Then repeat the "Daah - da -daahs" again until Easter.

Rhythmic interest? 3/10
Harmonic interest? 2/10
Structure? 2/10

The only point of vague interest is giving the lousy melody to a different instrument every time it appears - I think that there are much more interesting things one can do with an orchestra (even one with double woodwinds - or even less: witness Mozart's last four Symphonies).

I'll say no more - but I've disliked the work ever since I first heard it forty-five years ago, and have greatly enjoyed many movie scores that might have "imitated" it since (beggur! There goes my membership of the Snobbish Club - and I'd waited so long to get it). I used to quite like the Prince & Princess and the first section still appeals - but I can no longer eat a whole one. It is, for me, one of those works that initially I disliked, but over the years, it's got worse.

It was one of the problems reiterated by any number of composers who took on Liszt's "wallpaper pattern" methods of pseudo-symphonic development from "Les Preludes", as if fearful of melodic material not being memorised. Rimsky had imbibed it at least partly from Balakirev's much shorter "Tamara" of some 15 years earlier, which it almost plagiarized note-for-note - and he never really evolved in that respect (it mars the otherwise fascinatingly advanced "Le Coq D'Or", composed by Rimsky right at the end of his life), leaving it up to those future Russian and of course French composers so strongly influenced by the harmonic and colouristic procedures in "Sheherezade" to devise their own formal alternatives to compensate for its inadequacies in that respect.

[Richard Barrett]

Rhythmic interest? 3/10
Harmonic interest? 2/10
Structure? 2/10

A harsh opinion I must say. In fact I think I had better scuttle off and listen to it RIGHT NOW and see if I can work out exactly why I disagree.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

A harsh opinion I must say. In fact I think I had better scuttle off and listen to it RIGHT NOW and see if I can work out exactly why I disagree.

Enjoy!

I've just received a PM containing something I'll find much more to my taste


(Actually, considering what I've said about Scheherazade, that's less of a compliment than I intended. )

[richardfinegold]

Thanks, RFG. I still think that with the Beecham recording, where Borodin's Polovstian dances re the coupling, I think it's him, all he way through?

I know Beecham gets a lot of love on your side of the pond, but all efforts pale beside the Reiner

[Richard Barrett]

I know Beecham gets a lot of love on your side of the pond

Not round here he doesn't!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Daaah - da - daaaah di da daaaaaah di da ditdat ----- plink plonk

repeat until Feb 29th then insert

pom pom Paah pom pom Pee, pom pom Paah pom pom Pee; pom pom Paah pom pom Pee, pom pom Paah pom pom Pee

Then repeat the "Daah - da -daahs" again until Easter.

Rhythmic interest? 3/10
Harmonic interest? 2/10
Structure? 2/10

The only point of vague interest is giving the lousy melody to a different instrument every time it appears ...

Now then, Ferney, are you sure this hasn't all come about because this composer dared to tinker with Mussorgsky's orchestration.

[Richard Barrett]

Enjoy!

So, yes it is quite repetitious (although less so than Bruckner!), but I find the orchestration varied in an interesting way which holds the attention despite the recycling of a limited range of ideas - which even you would have to admit are rather memorable, since you onomatopoeically wrote out a large proportion of the score in one of your posts! . I would suggest that you listen to the refined textures of Immerseel's recording though - there's a lot of stuff in that which I hadn't really heard before.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

the recycling of a limited range of ideas - which even you would have to admit are rather memorable, since you onomatopoeically wrote out a large proportion of the score in one of your posts! .

But anything can become "memorable" if it's short enough and repeated frequently - "Beanz Meanz Heinz", "I feel like chicken tonight", "Hard-working families". That doesn't necessarily make it worth remembering.

I would suggest that you listen to the refined textures of Immerseel's recording though - there's a lot of stuff in that which I hadn't really heard before.

Urrgggh! I know I should ... and I probably shall ... but .... Oh, lor' ...

[Richard Barrett]

But anything can become "memorable" if it's short enough and repeated frequently

I knew you'd say that! and you're right of course. Nevertheless I do find something compellingly out of the ordinary in this piece. I think it has more to do with the way the orchestra is used than anything else.

[BBMmk2]

I have never heard the Reiner before I will spin it tomorrow.

[gradus]

Me neither, gaw'd bless Spotify.
Al Murray told a very funny school story on Private Passions about losing count of the bars in The Young Prince and Princess when given the onerous task of playing the cymbals.
By the way I'm against the antis, its b...y wonderful from beginning to end.

[Alain Maréchal]

Daaah - da - daaaah di da daaaaaah di da ditdat ----- plink plonk

If my aural memory (and aural perception) is correct it is not plink plonk the first time, but plink beep - pizz strings then oboe solo. I have never understood why.

[cloughie]

Not round here he doesn't!

He does round here!