Hello families,
Today I got to tell my second musical story of the year. The story of the beautiful, brave and clever Schéhérazade. The story goes like this...
After his first wife runs away, the mean Sultan decides that he can't trust women at all. He orders his Vizir to bring him a new bride every day and then have her killed the very next morning so that she doesn't have time to trick him. This goes on for a long time and all the girls in the realm are scared that they will be forced to marry the evil Sultan. The Vizir's own daughter, Schéhérazade, is well-read and has memorized the works of many authors and poets. She asks her father if she may marry the Sultan in order to hopefully save the lives of many other women. Of course, her father protests, but eventually agrees, knowing the consequence if she is not successful.
Before marrying the Sultan, Schéhérazade asks her sister, Dinarzade, to do her one favour. In the morning, she plans to ask the Sultan if she can visit her sister to say goodbye, and she wants Dinarzade to ask her to tell her one last story, as it will be her last opportunity. So, she marries the Sultan, and in the morning, he agrees to let her say goodbye to her sister and accompanies her. Dinarzade does as she was told and Schéhérazade begins telling one of her amazing stories. Just when she gets to the very best part, she stops and says she is tired and will have to tell the rest the next day. The Sultan is outraged! He was so engrossed in the story and absolutely wants to hear the end. So, he lets Schéhérazade live. The next day, she finishes telling that story and starts a new one, even more interesting than the first, but again, stops just at the best part. And so it goes night after night.
Schéhérazade tells stories of sea monsters, princes and princesses, the story of Sinbad the Sailor, the Festival at Baghdad, even the story of Aladdin and his magic lamp. After 1001 nights, Schéhérazade finally runs out of stories to tell and asks the Sultan why he has let her live so long. He is embarrassed and admits that he was a monster before and that at first he only let her live because he wanted to hear her stories. But, after all this time, he has grown to love her. He makes her his Queen and they live very happily, and Schéhérazade is finally able to get a peaceful night's sleep.
The music is composed by Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov. As in Symphonie Fantastique, the Sultan and Schéhérazade are represented by musical themes. The first movement opens with the Sultan's theme, followed shortly by Schéhérazade's (always played by the violin). The children were able to infer a lot about both characters by listening to their themes, before hearing any details of the story. In the music (we listened to the 1st and 4th movements only) we also hear elements of Schéhérazade's stories, such as the waves from Sinbad the Sailor, dance music for the prince and princess and the festival music from Festival at Baghdad.
At the end of the 4th movement, when the Sultan admits that he has been a monster and now loves Schéhérazade, you hear his theme die away underneath Schéhérazade's, and a rising motive, signalling a happy ending.
As always, I hope you will listen to this music again with your child, letting them explain what they remember. I also want to remind you that the TSO is performing Schéhérazade next week (that's why I told the story now), and it would be absolutely thrilling for your children to have the experience of hearing it performed live now that they understand what the music is telling. (Sidenote: I got to play the violin solo representing Scheherazade in the 3rd movement when I was in orchestra way back!)
Have a great long weekend!
Tamara