RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Scheherazade, Op. 35; Le Coq D’Or Suite – Vienna State Opera Orchestra/Hermann Scherchen/ Boston Symphony Orchestra/Erich Leinsdorf (Coq d’Or) – HDTT

by | Apr 22, 2008 | Classical Reissue Reviews | 0 comments

RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Scheherazade, Op. 35; Le Coq D’Or Suite – Vienna State Opera Orchestra/Hermann Scherchen/ Boston Symphony Orchestra/Erich Leinsdorf (Coq d’Or)/

HDTT CD-R HDCD101,  59:40 ****:

The Scheherazade by Hermann Scherchen derives from 1958 4-track prerecorded tape for the Westminster label. I believe the original Westminster LP (WST 14003) and its MCA CD incarnation credited the violin solo to Rudolf Streng.  HDTT doesn’t provide any timings for the various bands. The HDTT remastering does achieve finely-honed sonic separation for the solo and the orchestra, the latter of which grandly heaves mountains of water at us in The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship. Scherchen’s approach is rigorous and masculine, little of the veiled allure Beecham sought in this music. The VSOO brass and clarinet, cello, flute, and violas, provide a souped-up, languorous interlude between heaving seas, the violin solo nasal and piercing. When the waves return, the tympani and divided strings shriek furiously, only to dissipate so that the oboe and plucked strings, then arco, enchant us to continue on this sensuous voyage.

The Story of the Kalendar Prince, featuring solo violin, harp, and bassoon over a pedaled drone, seems to arise like smoke from a charmed lamp. A light hand guides the magical brew as the tempo accelerates, and we recall how much Scherchen relished Rimsky-Korsakov, having recorded for Nixa a fine Antar Symphony. Cello and French horn contribute equally well to the divine mix. Nasal trumpet work extends the low bass line to martial adventures, the cymbals and plucked strings nicely divided. Now whirling dervishes of sound scamper high against the furious march, Scherchen’s eliciting a transparent body of sound despite the competing, crusading stretti. The color forces gather for one final surge in counterpoint, the staggered melody ascending and then bursting forth gracefully and gratefully, the harp glissandi and flute solo shimmering silver.  

The love scene between The Young Prince and the Princess enjoys a flexible, suavely effervescent patina, the snare drum as silken as the strings, tambourine, and flute gurglings. Again, a martial air intrudes itself, the trumpets double-tonguing and harps wending a damask net, the strings melody serenely erotic. Scheherazade has the Sultan beguiled, Steng’s flute and viola tones competing for supremacy, especially in the brief cadenza with oboe. The huge crescendo is a consummation devoutly wished and rendered. The Sultana then dances for the rapt Sultan, her veils fluttering in demure victory over a series of drumbeats. Relatively low-key, the Festival of Baghdad–The Sea–Shipwreck begins on a pedal point and Streng’s carefully plied cadenza. Then the ineluctable bolero begins, the triangle and snare marking the various eddies of the pageants–on land and sea–about to hurl themselves over all creation. By the final colloquy between Scheherazade and the mighty Sultan, we, too, have come to forgive all of womenkind. For a conductor who prided himself for 20th Century scores of labyrinthine complexity and mathematical abstraction, Scherchen proves himself a potent acolyte of this powerful, Romantic warhorse!

Erich Leinsdorf’s rousing suite from Le Coq D’Or comes to us from a 1965 RCA 2-track tape produced by the ubiquitous Richard Mohr. The Boston Symphony players are every bit as committed to Eastern exoticism as the VSOO, their harp just as slithery. Any number of snake-charmer melodies wend their way across the magical fairyland of Rimsky-Korsakov’s imagination, with the BSO horns and strings casting their own haunting spells. Alternately martial and aerial, the music shows off the vibrancy of the “Aristocrat of Orchestras,” if I recall the (justifiable) hype of the times. Lovely viola and oboe evocations for the third episode. Sweet segue to the Lamentable Death of King Dodon, all due respect from nobly-paced trumpets and whirling strings. Perhaps some enterprising company will re-instate Leinsdorf’s Antar Symphony from Cleveland!  The continuous stream of delicious Russian melodies in one movement aligns this suite with similar instantiations from Richard Strauss.  

– -Gary Lemco

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