Overview
Introduction
Shéhérazade is the title of two works by the French composer Maurice Ravel. Both have their origins in the composer's fascination with Scheherazade, the heroine and narrator of The Arabian Nights. The first work, an overture (1898), Ravel's earliest surviving orchestral piece, was not well received at its premiere and has not subsequently been among his most popular works. Four years later he had a much greater success with a song cycle with the same title, which has remained a standard repertoire piece and has been recorded many times.
Both settings are influenced by Russian composers, particularly Rimsky-Korsakov, who had written a Scheherazade in 1888. The first composition was heavily influenced by Russian music, the second used a text inspired by Rimsky-Korsakov's symphonic poem. The musical relation between the Overture and the song cycle is thin, sometimes even denied.
Shéhérazade Overture
Shéhérazade, ouverture de féerie, written in 1898 but unpublished during the composer's lifetime (it was only published in 1975), is a work for orchestra planned as the overture for an opera of the same name.
It was first performed at a concert of the Société Nationale de Musique on 27 May 1899, conducted by the composer. It had a mixed reception, with boos mingling with applause from the audience, and unflattering reviews from the critics. One described the piece as "a jolting debut: a clumsy plagiarism of the Russian School" and called Ravel a "mediocrely gifted debutant ... who will perhaps become something if not someone in about ten years, if he works hard." This critic was "Willy", Henri Gauthier-Villars, who later became an admirer of Ravel. The composer assimilated Willy's criticism, describing the overture as "a clumsy botch-up", and recognising that it was "quite heavily dominated by the influence of Russian music" (assez fortement dominé par l'influence de la musique russe). Another critic, Pierre Lalo, thought that Ravel showed talent, but was too indebted to Debussy and should instead emulate Beethoven.
A programme note for the first performance, unsigned, but thought to be by the composer, reads:
Constructed in the classical form of the overture, the piece opens with an introduction, in which the theme of Scheherezade is given first by an oboe, and then by the horns and trumpets. Then comes the main part of the overture, consisting of:
- Part 1: Initial motif, in B minor. Developments – episodic theme (muted trumpets) bringing in the second motif – in F sharp major – inspired by a Persian melody – conclusion of Part 1.
- Part 2: Development of four themes. Pedal based on the original motif, expanded.
- Part 3: Return of the first and second motifs heard simultaneously. Return of the introduction, serving as a coda.
The playing time of the piece is about 13 minutes.
Shéhérazade song cycle
The exoticism of the Arabian Nights continued to interest Ravel. In the early years of the 20th century he met the poet Tristan Klingsor, who had recently published a collection of free-verse poems under the title Shéhérazade, inspired by Rimsky-Korsakov's symphonic suite of the same name, a work that Ravel also much admired. Ravel and Klingsor were fellow members of a group of young creative artists calling themselves "Les Apaches" (the Hooligans); the poet read some of his new verses to the group, and Ravel was immediately taken with the idea of setting three of them. He asked Klingsor to make some minor changes before he set to work on the music.
Ravel's song cycle Shéhérazade, is for soprano (or tenor) solo and orchestra, setting the words of Klingsor's "Asie", "La flûte enchantée", and "L'indifférent". It was first performed on 17 May 1904 at a Société Nationale concert at the Salle Nouveau Théâtre, Paris, with Jeanne Hatto and an orchestra conducted by Alfred Cortot. The three songs of the cycle are individually dedicated by the composer to Hatto ("Asie"), Madame René de Saint-Marceaux ("La flûte enchantée") and Emma Bardac ("L'indifférent").
Whether the overture and the song cycle are musically related is debated. According to Ravel's biographer Arbie Orenstein, there is little melodic connection between the overture and the cycle, with the exception of the opening theme of the first song, "Asie", which uses a theme, based on a modally inflected scale, similar to one near the beginning of the overture. Ravel originally conceived the cycle with "Asie" coming last, and this order was adopted at the premiere, but his final preference, in the published score, gives a sequence steadily decreasing in intensity; the critic Caroline Rae writes that the music moves "from rich voluptuousness and gentle lyricism to languid sensuousness".
