Rimsky-Korsakov and Playing the Ink
This post was originally published in the New Orleans Volunteer Orchestra website in July of 2015.
I’ve said before that I live for the moments in classical music, the passages where all hell breaks loose or where the piece reaches it’s thrilling and satisfying climax (my obsession with Bruckner’s cymbals in my previous post was a perfect example). So when I go hunting for a decent recording of a piece, I usually end up comparing these moments, these climaxes. It seems to me that an orchestra and conductor who breathes the right type of expression and grandeur into a piece’s climax really understands the piece, and is usually a good indicator of a great recording.
When you compare moments and climaxes like this, you start to find some really interesting differences in interpretation, and you find some conductors taking really fascinating liberties with the score. Let’s take a look at Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, for example. In the second movement, the first melody is a really gorgeous little sequential melody. When the piece recapitulates, Rimsky-Korsakov changes the melody ever so slightly:
‘Recapitulation’ of Scheherazade, Mvt. 2
Here is a performance of the piece by the USSR Symphony Orchestra (fitting, right?), highlighting this excerpt.
(listen from 8:58 – 9:11)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNQUsXeQzyI&t=8m58s
To compare, Fritz Reiner has an absolutely fantastic recording of the suite, one of my favorites, and he does something really interesting here. Right at the change (marked in red), Reiner takes a sudden and drastic rubato.
(listen from 8:36 – 8:52)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByVhN7YGtSw&t=8m36s
What I find interesting about this Reiner’s rubato is that it’s not in the score. There’s an espressivo marking 5 measures earlier, but the tempo change is certainly Reiner’s and not Rimsky-Korsakov’s. A purist might cry foul, perhaps rightfully so. But it’s wonderfully effective and highlights the change in the music. It begs the question, are such liberties with the score justified?
Let’s take another example from Scheherazade. Below is a lovely rendition of the climax from the 3rd movement of the suite, again from Reiner with Chicago.
(listen from 9:00 – 9:25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmDSYrccLk0&t=9m0s
This time, Reiner and Chicago plays the ink, but something interesting happens in some other renditions. Listen to this recording from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with Barry Wordsworth.
(listen from 30:49 – 31:10)
Climax of Scheherazade, Mvt. 3
In this rendition, and in several other recordings I’ve managed to find (even Valery Gergiev!), the violins soar upwards instead of a step down at the C marked in red. Now this gets tricky – this isn’t just a tempo change, it’s changing an octave. One might argue that it’s the same tones so doesn’t constitute a huge change, but changing the octave at that particular point drastically transforms the line and phrasing. The original line winds its way downward, relaxing and releasing tension as it goes. The modified version replaces this relaxing with an intensely yearning line that never lets up in intensity.
But in its defense, the leap isn’t without precedent in the score – previously in the music the cellos have the same melody and play the same line. And moreover, it works. It’s not what Rimsky-Korsakov wrote but it arguably agrees with the ethos of the work, and some would say even improves the piece.
And that brings us to the tricky thing with all of this. How do we know if it works or not? And just how much liberty with the score is a conductor allowed to take? Are tempos fair game? Are harmonies off-limits? Orchestrations sacred? If it works, should you do it? There are countless examples scores being changed, and often for the better – the clarinet intro to Rhapsody in Blue, the harp cadenza in Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker were both modified with the composer’s permission. And conductors have been known to re-orchestrate pieces at times, if only to bring out a certain passage or achieve a certain effect. How should we feel about practices like this?
I don’t know the answers to these questions. I don’t consider myself a purist, but I also don’t always know what to think about these issues. I find myself loving some of these liberated interpretations and hating others. Maybe it really is just a matter of taste. I’m starting to think that might be the case. But maybe sometimes it just works, and maybe that’s alright. One last example – Russian Easter Overture with Stokowski. Maybe taking a sudden, unwritten, not-what-the-composer wrote pesante at that big low brass entrance isn’t disrespectful to the composer – maybe it elevates the work, and transforms those broad chords into a transcendent fanfare from the heavens. It might not match the ink of the music, but it certainly agrees with its soul.
(13:15 – end)