Ensemble K & Simone Menezes: Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade, A Tale
Alpha Classics

Even if you already own a recording of Rimsky-Korsakov's masterpiece, this latest iteration is a must-have. Performed by Ensemble K under Italian-Brazilian conductor Simone Menezes' expert direction and with Golshifteh Farahani and Kristin Winters narrating the parts of Scheherazade and her sister Dinarzade, respectively, the release offers the best of both worlds: two treatments, the familiar one featuring the music alone and a newly created one that augments the music with recited texts. Whereas the purist might happily stick with the instrumental version, the non-purist can experience the work afresh with the re-imagining. In the latter case, spoken word is both coupled with the music and presented sans accompaniment, resulting in a performance that totals forty-nine minutes and is thus four minutes longer than its instrumental counterpart.

Composed in 1888, Rimsky-Korsakov's iconic score is given a terrific reading by Ensemble K, which is chamber-sized in comprising fourteen musicians—five strings, four woodwinds, three horns, a pianist, and percussionist—but performs with the vibrancy and lustre of a full orchestra; at the same time, the smaller size infuses its renditions with an intimacy befitting the subject matter. Helmed by the esteemed Menezes, the ensemble plays with a refined nuance tailor-made for Rimsky-Korsakov's suite. While she's been with the group since its 2019 founding, she's also conducted other ensembles, among them the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Zurich Philharmonia, London Philharmonia, and Osaka Symphony Orchestra. Farahani and Winters also bring impressive credentials to the project. The Iran-born Farahani began her acting career at the age of fourteen and has been involved in more than fifty projects since, from films to television series. The London-based Winter is a renowned and award-winning actor who's appeared in many stage productions and has founded a number of theatre companies.

Crafted by Menezes, Simon Scardifield, and Lynn Serfaty, the text for the new version derives from One Thousand and One Nights plus ancient love poems. With the words added, a more complex portrait of Scheherazade crystallizes; she's traditionally been seen as either a seductress or a woman who told stories to survive but in Menezes' view is more than anything else heroic for the bravery and intelligence she shows. In its simplest form, the original story has to do with the Sultan Schakhriar, who married a maiden each night and had her put her to death by the Grand Vizier the next morning, and the Sultana Scheherazade, who, after requesting that she become the Sultan's wife to hopefully save all those still-to-be-future wives, avoided death by entertaining him with incredible tales for a thousand and one nights and with her sister, Dinarzade, sleeping at her feet and prompting her storytelling. Suitably captivated by her tales, the Sultan continually postpones her execution until he ultimately repudiates his intent to kill her.

Of course, Rimsky-Korsakov's symphonic suite is renowned for its dazzling orchestral colour, enrapturing passages, and haunting themes. One in particular stands out, the theme associated with Scheherazade lyrical and plaintive and voiced by solo violin and harp. It surfaces throughout the work and is certainly one of its most entrancing elements. Each of the four movements' titles, by the way, references a tale from One Thousand and One Nights.

In the text treatment of the work, “The Sea and Sinbad's Ship” begins with Dinarzade recounting the story of the Sultana Scheherazade and Winters delivering the words with dramatic, well-calibrated flair. Following that initial plea from Dinarzade, the violin solo makes its bewitching entrance and the music swells with the ensemble breathing the rapturous music into being. The coupling of recitation and orchestral material is never awkward but instead deftly handled and integrated with care. In “The Kalendar Prince,” the speakers' voices alternate until Dinarzade's plea for a story elicits from Scheherazade the tale about a dangerous encounter a young porter and six other men have with three beautiful women at a palatial home. Farahani's delivery is as spellbinding as the tale itself, and once again the coupling of the voices and music is executed seamlessly. The work's most romantic movement arrives with “The Young Prince and The Young Princess,” the Scheherazade theme setting the tone gloriously and the ensemble following its lead with elegiac outpourings. The music wends its way resplendently through joyous and carefree passages before returning to another heartfelt expression of the Scheherazade theme. Darker tonalities emerge with the onset of the dynamic final movement, “Festival at Baghdad,” and its self-referential story about a Sultan whose death-threatened prisoner keeps herself alive by inventing stories. As the suite nears its end, the music expands triumphantly before one final voicing of the main theme guides the work to a stirring resolution.

October 2024