Scheherazade is a story about a woman that becomes a wonderful storyteller in order to save herself and the lives of many others. After he finds out that his first wife cheats on him, a Persian king decides that he will marry a new virgin every day and have her beheaded the next. Before the day that the royal script’s daughter Scheherazade volunteered to marry him herself, the king had already killed about 1,000 women. Since she was the scripts daughter, she had read a lot of books and was very well educated. Her first, and supposed last night with the king, Scheherazade asked to tell her sister goodbye. Upon doing so, the sister asks Scheherazade to tell her a story, which they had of course previously planned. The story goes long into …show more content…
In his 1888 Scheherazade composition, Rimsky does a phenomenal job with his four movements based upon the tales previously mentioned. Initially he made the titles vague so they weren’t necessarily associated with any specific stories, however along the way he decided to get away from the titles all together so that those listening wouldn’t be as focused on that but more so on the feeling of fairytale adventure he worked to create. Before I move on to discuss a few of his movements I would like to share a brief introduction Rimsky intended to be used with his …show more content…
The first movement is titled The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship. This piece seems to be a very serious and strong composition done with a heavy amount of brass and a lovely usage of the violin. I rate this as a solid 8 as the piece itself is not only written wonderfully but the Austin Symphony performed it beautifully. I believe that this piece was Rimsky’s way of drawing the listener in and starting this journey strong. I also feel as though he wanted to portray the idea of storytelling here and make us feel like we do when we are lost in a good tale, and for me, that worked perfectly. This piece grabbed my attention instantly and never gave me the chance of losing interest. It definitely gave me the feeling of fantasy and adventure as the mood changes somewhat frequently, yet in the most appropriate way making one feel as though they are actually on a trip at sea or as said previously, lost in a