Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade”: Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert

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In Monday’s post, we explored the warm, instantly-recognizable sound of the Philadelphia Orchestra during its golden age under the tenure of music directors Leopold Stokowski and Eugene Ormandy. As a follow up, here is a 1978 concert performance of Scheherazade by the Russian Romanticist, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908). The symphonic suite, based on The Arabian Nights, is filled with shimmering colors (Rimsky-Korsakov was one of music history’s most innovate orchestrators) and “exotic” Eastern sounds (the opening brass motive outlines …

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Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Russian Easter Overture”: Music for the “Bright Holiday”

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In Russia, Easter is known as the “Bright Holiday.” Appropriately, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Russian Easter Overture, completed in 1888, springs to life with bright, glistening sounds. You can almost sense nature’s springtime renewal in the fresh, joyful vitality of this music. For example, listen to this shimmering passage near the beginning of the piece. Vibrant colors and instrumental personas are central to the music of Rimsky-Korsakov, who wrote an influential treatise on orchestration. He said, “To orchestrate is …

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Two Nights on Bald Mountain

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(Above: A scene from Disney’s Fantasia (1940), which popularized Night on Bald Mountain with a version by conductor Leopold Stokowski.) Modest Mussorgsky’s 1867 tone poem, Night on Bald Mountain was inspired by an old Russian legend which was turned into a ghoulish short story by Nikolai Gogol. The story centers around witches, black magic, and events which you might expect in the most grisly horror movie. Here is Mussorgsky’s description of the musical program for Night on Bald …

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Five Musical Sunrises

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Natural cycles, from the change of seasons to the predictable routine of day turning to night, shape our sense of time. Can you imagine how our perception of time, and subsequently music, would be different without these events? Nature’s visual grandeur has also been an inspiration to composers, especially the eternal drama of the sunrise. Here are five musical depictions: [typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]Haydn’s “Sunrise” String Quartet[/typography] Haydn’s String Quartet in B flat …

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