Prom 9: The Two Scheherazades (21.07.22)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Prom 9: The Two Scheherazades
19:00 Thursday 21 July 2022
Royal Albert Hall

Maurice Ravel: Shéhérazade – ouverture de féerie
Sally Beamish: Hive (BBC co-commission: world première)
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade


For composers in the 19th century, the pages of the One Thousand and One Nights were a portal to a new imaginative world: a place where fantastic stories and exotic images inspired sounds more sensuous, more colourful and more magical than anything that had been heard before. Ravel and Rimsky-Korsakov both drew inspiration from the tales of the beautiful Scheherazade, and both created music that lets a full symphony orchestra weave pure enchantment: a glorious showcase for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and its charismatic French guest conductor Ariane Matiakh. Sally Beamish, meanwhile, finds stories closer to home, in a beehive-inspired premiere for ‘Queen of Harps’ Catrin Finch.

Catrin Finch harp
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Ariane Matiakh conductor

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Genuine question. What's a co-commission? Commissioned by more than one organisation?

[crb11]

Genuine question. What's a co-commission? Commissioned by more than one organisation?

Exactly. Our choir, which sponsors new music, has done a couple where we've split it 50/50 with another choir. The other commissioning body is the International Harp Congress. (From Beamish's website which also gives information on the genesis and programme of the work.)

[Serial_Apologist]

Prom 9: The Two Scheherazades
19:00 Thursday 21 July 2022
Royal Albert Hall

Maurice Ravel: Shéhérazade – ouverture de féerie
Sally Beamish: Hive (BBC co-commission: world première)
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade


For composers in the 19th century, the pages of the One Thousand and One Nights were a portal to a new imaginative world: a place where fantastic stories and exotic images inspired sounds more sensuous, more colourful and more magical than anything that had been heard before. Ravel and Rimsky-Korsakov both drew inspiration from the tales of the beautiful Scheherazade, and both created music that lets a full symphony orchestra weave pure enchantment: a glorious showcase for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and its charismatic French guest conductor Ariane Matiakh. Sally Beamish, meanwhile, finds stories closer to home, in a beehive-inspired premiere for ‘Queen of Harps’ Catrin Finch.

Catrin Finch harp
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Ariane Matiakh conductor

There are three Sheherazades if you include the second, and for me less interesting song cycle of Ravel.

[Nick Armstrong]

for me less interesting song cycle of Ravel.

… I’d rather hear that (subject always to who’s singing it ) than either of the other two… mais à chacun son goût

[Belgrove]

… I’d rather hear that (subject always to who’s singing it ) than either of the other two… mais à chacun son goût

Absolutely!
L’indifferent is one of the most perfect of orchestral songs, so cool, so ambiguous, so simple and yet beguilingly sophisticated.

[Master Jacques]

Absolutely!
L’indifferent is one of the most perfect of orchestral songs, so cool, so ambiguous, so simple and yet beguilingly sophisticated.

.. and with Suzanne Danco, please. All those things, and more.

[cloughie]

There are three Sheherazades if you include the second, and for me less interesting song cycle of Ravel.

No, S_A, it is the most interesting - a thing to be treasured? I could listen to it for 1001 nights!

[Serial_Apologist]

No, S_A, it is the most interesting - a thing to be treasured? I could listen to it for 1001 nights!

At the advice of everyone who disagrees with me, thanks - I will give the songs another listen!

[richardfinegold]

Poor Rimsky isn’t getting any love in this thread. It’s interesting programming, although one wishes the Beamish could have been based on 1001 Arabian Nights as well.

[Nick Armstrong]

Just started a new thread on Our Summer BAL…

Good news

I could move the relevant posts from here over there - but they would knock yours off #1 spot and your post there seems an admirable starting point.

[Master Jacques]

Poor Rimsky isn’t getting any love in this thread. It’s interesting programming, although one wishes the Beamish could have been based on 1001 Arabian Nights as well.

Please give Rimsky my love. There's a degree of critical snobbishness about his piece, flagged up by the usual damns of faint praise about how marvellous his orchestration is, which I always resent. It is - simply - one of the most groundbreaking pieces of symphonic music ever written, without which a host of composers (from Debussy through to Glass and probably beyond) could not have done what they did. Not that they did any better!

[cloughie]

Please give Rimsky my love. There's a degree of critical snobbishness about his piece, flagged up by the usual damns of faint praise about how marvellous his orchestration is, which I always resent. It is - simply - one of the most groundbreaking pieces of symphonic music ever written, without which a host of composers (from Debussy through to Glass and probably beyond) could not have done what they did. Not that they did any better!

Indeed so - a stepping stone for many of us in our appreciation of good sounding music, and a bridge to his pupil Stravinsky, Ravel and many others!
Well do I remember listening to three great recordings of Sch ( you know what ) by Reiner, Monteux and Kletzki!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Poor Rimsky isn’t getting any love in this thread. It’s interesting programming, although one wishes the Beamish could have been based on 1001 Arabian Nights as well.

It’s a very fine work. People often knock it because it’s popular, but it happens to be very good, nevertheless.
I also like Rimski-Korsakov’s revisions of certain works of Mussorgsky, for which he’s so often slated.

[gradus]

Let's hear it for R-K"! It's still a favourite piece, especially those harp glissandi at the second movt climax, a wonderful touch but nearly inaudible on many recordings. There's a lovely Al Murray story of his experience as a percussionist in his school orchestra, losing count of the swiftly passing bars in the second movt and missing his cymbal crash cue.