Recorded January-February 1993, these stereo inscriptions from Orchestra Hall, Chicago reveal a relatively subdued Daniel Barenboim, holding a course in the broad, colorful Scheherazade between Fritz Reiner and the CSO’s muscular account and the more lithe, “feminine” affect achieved by Sir Thomas Beecham and the Royal Philharmonic. A seductive leisure permeates the first movement, “The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship,” alternating the huge trombone fanfares and wave-like tuttis with individual moments of instrumental dialogue of etched beauty. The swells and windy power of the horn and flute, over the undulant strings, become quite compelling, especially as the texture thins to an ostinato over which cello, flute, and oboe converse of heroic deeds and exotic places. Samuel Magad’s soli enjoy a plastic poise that holds its own against the classic readings by Harth and Oistrakh, the latter for the under-rated performance by Golovanov.
The lovely cadenza that opens “The Story of the Kalendar Prince,” with accompanying harp and bassoon, conveys a tender sensuality, the momentum’s being urged in liquid colors by oboe, harp, and plucked strings. Barenboim institutes a lovely andante-waltz tempo, marcato, which breaks loose dramatically without mannerism. Cello, clarinet, piccolo, and French horn add their timbres to the mix; then, the element of melodrama enters, especially in the brass, and we proceed to the composer’s working out of “magical” motifs in loose sonata-form. The legato, string statement of the main theme continues to cast its own spell over all who admire this exquisite ode to orchestral colors, what one enthusiast proclaimed “wonderful Ali Baba music.” Flute and harp declaim, along with violin, cello, and muted horn in the final pages, that this is music for children of all ages.
The love-scene, “The Young Prince and the Princess,” proceeds in a stately, variegated tapestry, never descending into a Tristan parody. Its episodes of gaiety and janissary pomp Barenboim realizes with that slight ritard in the tempo this conductor favors. Schehehrazade intrudes into the narrative, legato and spiccato, perhaps weaving her own promises of delights to the Sultan. The last movement, “The Festival at Baghdad; The Sea; “Shipwreck” appeals to our love of heroic spectacle. Some thrilling pedal points under Magad’s heated strokes invoke the whirling colors of Baghdad. The snare drum adds as much to the excitement as any of the tutti moments of bravura pageantry. Dervishes and veiled dancers spin to the punctuated trombones and feverish battery, the impulses gaining increased, oriental power. At full gallop, the waters and ship driven onto the rocky shore, the CSO forces ring with a homogeneity of sound equal to the Vienna Philharmonic. The extended coda wafts into space, an illuminated manuscript on the powers of love and story-telling.
The 1900 suite from the opera The Tsar Saltan has been a personal favorite of mine since I first encountered the classic rendition–as yet not transferred to the CD medium–by Issay Dobrowen and the Philharmonia Orchestra of London. Its alternate militancy and sweet lyricism takes several decisive pages from Wagner’s Forest Murmurs and Magic Fire Music for the last scene, “The Three Wonders.” Harmonically, the most interesting sequence is the second scene, “The Tsarina in a Barrel at Sea,” with its invocations of an oceanic desert, an oxymoron familiar to readers of “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” The kaleidoscopic range of colors, of magic, of heraldic marches–all remind me how close in spirit Rimsky-Korsakov is to the fairy-tale world of Schumann.
— Gary Lemco
