Art by Edmund Dulac
This week, all I've been listening to is Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korasakov.
It started when I was looking up the music played at the Olympics while writing my "Olympics in Review" post (which will be up later this week), and the I couldn't stop! I listened to it while doing my statistics homework to studying for my statistics test this week. It even got to the point where when I started studying without it the music immediately popped in to my head!
Scheherezade is the legendary queen from the story One-Thousands and One Nights. The story goes as such: The Persian king would marry a new virgin and behead his previous wife every day, as he was angry that his first wife betrayed him (dramatic, much?). Scheherezade went to him and told a story every night, but never finished it before dawn, so the king kept her alive another day so she could finish the story. This happened every night until on the one-thousanth day, Scheherezade had no more stories to tell. The king, however had fallen in love with her by this point and made her his wife. All I heard during the olympics was about romantic this story was, but I don't agree. Either way, the music is beautiful, even if the king was kind of an idiot.
I've been meaning to listen to the piece for a long while and I'm so glad I finally did! It is so beautiful and moving that it definitely will be something I come back to listen to over and over. It also has special meaning to me, as when I mentioned it to my mother (who loves classical) she told me this was what she listened to while giving birth to me! That makes it so much better, and gives it so much extra emotion to listen to. I love it!
I've been listening to the version played by the London Philharmonic HERE on Spotify. I'm sure, however, you could look it up on any of your preferred music players to check it out.
xxTanya
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