Rimsky Korsakov - Scheherazade [Maazel-The Cleveland Orchestra]Recorded in 1977, Lorin Maazel took over the Cleveland Orchestra job from no less than George Szell in 1972, he had big boots to fill, he held the post for ten years until 1982, making many fine recordings, and giving the Orchestra a different sound.
It's hard to put Scheherazade into a category, is it a Symphony in disguise?, four Tone Poems maybe?, i suppose it's a Symphonic Suite!, rather like Smetana's Ma Vlast, but Rimsky-Korsakov choosing four pieces, automatically throws up the idea of a Symphony.
The fourth movement is certainly a finale!, lots of flamboyant exuberance, it's a kaleidoscope of lots of shorter ideas, it's flits, flashes and darts about, skillfully woven together into seamless magic, certainly the music has this Arabic/Oriental flavour about it, the use of the tambourine [1:19-1:23], the seductive flute right after [1:23-1:33], lots of percussion, and that military side drum, certainly Rimsky-Korsakov makes full use of every instrument available to him, and everyone seems to get their turn, after lots of virtuosic playing, it builds up and up, and finally explodes into a release [7:42+], and the main theme is played triumphantly on full throttle, interspersed with crashes from the timpani, then there's this sad refrain softly on the violins [9:13+], which begins the coda, Scheherazade gets her solo/cadenza on the violin [Daniel Majeske], and the thing winds down, a mesmerising showpiece by Maazel.
Here's Ormandy conducting the fourth movement on YouTube.
Blog = Uncle Dave Lewis
