The Blue Sultana by During the winter of 1887, as he worked to complete 's unfinished opera, Rimsky-Korsakov decided to compose an orchestral piece based on pictures from as well as separate and unconnected episodes. After formulating musical sketches of his proposed work, he moved with his family to the Glinki-Mavriny, in Nyezhgovitsy along the Cheryemenyetskoye Lake (near present-day, in Leningrad.

The dacha where he stayed was destroyed by the Germans during.) During the summer, he finished Scheherazade and the. Notes in his autograph orchestral score show that the former was completed between June 4 and August 7, 1888. Scheherazade consisted of a symphonic suite of four related that form a unified theme. The New Bella Vista Hotel. It was written to produce a sensation of fantasy narratives from the Orient. Initially, Rimsky-Korsakov intended to name the respective movements in Scheherazade 'Prelude, Ballade, Adagio and Finale'. However, after weighing the opinions of and others, as well as his own aversion to a too-definitive program, he settled upon thematic headings, based upon the tales from The Arabian Nights. The composer deliberately made the titles vague, so that they are not associated with specific tales or voyages of.

However, in the epigraph to the finale, he does make reference to the adventure of Prince Ajib. In a later edition, Rimsky-Korsakov did away with titles altogether, desiring instead that the listener should hear his work only as an Oriental-themed symphonic music that evokes a sense of the fairy-tale adventure, stating: All I desired was that the hearer, if he liked my piece as symphonic music, should carry away the impression that it is beyond a doubt an Oriental narrative of some numerous and varied fairy-tale wonders and not merely four pieces played one after the other and composed on the basis of themes common to all the four movements.

He went on to say that he kept the name Scheherazade because it brought to everyone’s mind the fairy-tale wonders of Arabian Nights and the East in general. Performed by the conducted by, with violin solo by Problems playing these files? Overview [ ] Rimsky wrote a brief introduction that he intended for use with the score as well as the program for the premiere: The Sultan Schariar, convinced that all women are false and faithless, vowed to put to death each of his wives after the first nuptial night.