Scheherazade meaning
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Free Mini-Lesson: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov – The Story of the Kalender Prince, from Scheherazade, op. 35
The Kalender Prince is the second movement of Rimsky-Korsakov’s symphonic suite, Scheherazade, based on the Book of One Thousand and One Nights. Scheherazade tells the story of a woman who, from her marginalized existence, becomes empowered, and in her struggle to survive, changes an empire.
A man discovers that a woman, in this case, his wife, has cheated on him. He kills her, execution-style. His rage against women so consumes him that he carries out a one-man rampage of serial rape and murder. This is not, however, the story of Ted Bundy or the Hillside Strangler.
This man rules a nation. His vendetta becomes national policy, a gender-based genocide using the cover of legal marriage to hide the brutality of his acts. One woman dares to challenge this reign of terror.
Scheherazade is the latest in the ruler’s string of brides, a daughter of a government official who volunteers for the job
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Once upon a time
A brokenhearted sultan was taking his vengeance on all women – having put his beloved wife to death upon learning of her infidelity – by taking a new bride each evening and putting her to death the next morning. He reasoned by doing so he could enjoy the companionship of a wife without having to worry about being betrayed by her. This had gone on for a very long time, when a very clever young woman named Scheherazade decided to try to put an end to this by offering herself up as the sultan’s next bride. Her ploy was to tell the sultan a bedtime story which so completely intrigued him, that when dawn came she would leave him with a cliffhanger. Since he couldn’t possibly put her death before hearing how the story ended, Scheherazade received a reprieve. The next night she would start all over again, always ending with a cliffhanger at dawn. Her plan succeeded for 1001 nights! At that point she finished her final story, by which time the sultan had fallen in love, the two of them lived happily ever after, and no more women would be put to death to assuage the Sul
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Rimsky-Korsakov, Scheherazade
Scheherazade has to rank as one of Rimsky-Korsakov’s most colorful orchestral suites. Composed in 1888, it was inspired by the stories of One Thousand and One Nights. The King has a distressing habit of executing his wives after a single night, but Scheherazade tells him a series of stories so intriguing that he keeps postponing her demise and bringing her back for another tale.
Rimsky-Korsakov dives into the exotic elements of the stories with oriental melodies, sensuous imagery, and vivid depictions of the sea. His experience as a naval officer seems to have given him a special ability to compose seascapes. We provided more biographical information on Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) in a prior Friday Performance Pick featuring his Capriccio Espagnol.
Scheherazade is comprised of four movements, each representing a different story from the Arabian Nights. The first movement, “The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship,” depicts the tale of Sinbad the Sailor and his voyages across the sea. The second movement, “The Kalendar P
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