Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov begins Scheherazade with “The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship.” To further demonstrate how Rimsky-Korsakov tells a story, the YouTube video will be added to aid in aural understanding, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQNymNaTr-Y; time markings will refer to the listed video. At 0:18, the video begins with the strings in unison marked pesante, along with a deep, bellowing brass section. This marks the introduction of the sultan’s theme. This is followed by woodwinds holding a number of fermatas with pianissimo, showing the entrance of Scheherazade herself. Her voice, embodied by the solo violin, is heard at 1:00 with harp, indicating she is going to begin telling her story to survive. Scheherazade’s voice speaks: Let me tell you a story, a story from far, far away, long ago…” Her story takes off in 1:34 as the tutti orchestra comes
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The cellos and violas cross strings in an undulating motion. Not only does this portray waves, the crossing of the strings, physically, appear to “waves” in the ocean as well. At the same time, the violins and upper woodwinds carry the melody with trills, depicting the rocky, treacherous path head. The music, along with Scheherazade’s story, intensifies as dynamics grow louder and pitch climb higher. The story transitions to 3:17, with a calmer, gentler shift with the clarinets and flutes and a cello solo. This marks Sinbad in discovering a new area after the tumultuous tides. The horn takes over the melody, playing an interlude between the flute, oboe, and clarinet, all in a relatively quiet dynamic. However, the story must go on as Scheherazade’s voice is spoken once again at 4:07, this time in a more agitated manner. The situation, it seems at 4:21, is back in the boisterous ocean with the tutti orchestra, with the succession of triplets and the recurrence of trills in the melody demonstrating unsettling
The cellos and violas cross strings in an undulating motion. Not only does this portray waves, the crossing of the strings, physically, appear to “waves” in the ocean as well. At the same time, the violins and upper woodwinds carry the melody with trills, depicting the rocky, treacherous path head. The music, along with Scheherazade’s story, intensifies as dynamics grow louder and pitch climb higher. The story transitions to 3:17, with a calmer, gentler shift with the clarinets and flutes and a cello solo. This marks Sinbad in discovering a new area after the tumultuous tides. The horn takes over the melody, playing an interlude between the flute, oboe, and clarinet, all in a relatively quiet dynamic. However, the story must go on as Scheherazade’s voice is spoken once again at 4:07, this time in a more agitated manner. The situation, it seems at 4:21, is back in the boisterous ocean with the tutti orchestra, with the succession of triplets and the recurrence of trills in the melody demonstrating unsettling