Glaring Omission

[AnotherSpin]

As a child, I often heard Rimsky-Korsakov's music on official radio or TV. He wasn't just one of the anointed composers approved for the tender ears of Soviet citizens — oh no, he was practically a foot soldier of Party propaganda. Classics with a mission, you might say. I remember one of my first "serious" LPs in the early '70s was Scheherazade, probably conducted by Fedoseyev. My record collection was so tiny then that I listened to each one endlessly, until I knew every detail inside out. And yet, I can't recall a single melody now. Not one. And the best part? I don't have the slightest desire to refresh my memory. Such a pleasant little omission.

[Florestan]

As a child, I often heard Rimsky-Korsakov's music on official radio or TV. He wasn't just one of the anointed composers approved for the tender ears of Soviet citizens — oh no, he was practically a foot soldier of Party propaganda. Classics with a mission, you might say.

The irony being that R-K, who died a decade before the Bolshevik takeover of Russia, was a liberal who'd have probably got into trouble with the new regime., just as he got into trouble with the Tsarist one. Actually, I can't think of a single great Russian composer who died before 1918 who would have been a supporter of the Bolsheviks, let alone an enthusiastic Party member.

[JBS]

There's a scene in The First Circle in which the inmates vent their feelings about the "trials" that put them into the gulags by imagining Rimsky-Korsakov in the dock, the prosecutor starting off with him being an aristocrat, as evidenced by the hyphenated name.

[Karl Henning]

I can understand why the repetitive problem could arise, but ... well, if I'm eating chocolates (and Scheherazade is very like chocolates for me), I want a lot more than one chocolate, you see.

I remember listening to Scheherazade outdoors on the lawn in the summer of 1965, day after day. The sun shone, and there was nowhere else I wanted to be, and no musical adventure I could have preferred just then (I only had four classical LPs at the time). With a glorious memory like that, the music just seems part of who I am. I owe it a vast debt.

Very nice!

[Karl Henning]

Rimsky-Korsakov wrote a number of pieces that were so overplayed on classical radio I feel no need to hear them ever again.

Ah, the wonder that is WCRB!

[JBS]

Ah, the wonder that is WCRB!

In my case it was WTMI in Miami Beach. When it went from on-air to online website based in Connecticut (under the URL Beethoven dot com*) I replaced it by buying CDs--at first a small collection of basics that included R-K's bonbons, but evolving rapidly from that.

*That was about 30 years ago. I have no idea if there's any connection to any current website.

[ChamberNut]

In my case it was WTMI in Miami Beach. When it went from on-air to online website based in Connecticut (under the URL Beethoven dot com*) I replaced it by buying CDs--at first a small collection of basics that included R-K's bonbons, but evolving rapidly from that.

*That was about 30 years ago. I have no idea if there's any connection to any current website.

You know Beethoven Radio dot com?

That was an initial part of my discovery phase. They had a forum like this too and I was a member. Based out of Hartford Connecticut.

[hopefullytrusting]

You know Beethoven Radio dot com?

That was an initial part of my discovery phase. They had a forum like this too and I was a member. Based out of Hartford Connecticut.

My initial phase was back in the 1980s with those super-cheap 60 minute compilation cassettes. I recall having four of them: Bach, Beethoven, Haydn, and Mozart.

[JBS]

You know Beethoven Radio dot com?

That was an initial part of my discovery phase. They had a forum like this too and I was a member. Based out of Hartford Connecticut.

That would have been them. WTMI's owner decided there was no future for classical radio, sold the FCC license, and used the station's library of recordings for his new internet venture.

In the meantime, I've taken the little group of CDs I got back then
and put them into the listening pile, so expect me to post some bonbons over the next few weeks.

[AnotherSpin]

There's a scene in The First Circle in which the inmates vent their feelings about the "trials" that put them into the gulags by imagining Rimsky-Korsakov in the dock, the prosecutor starting off with him being an aristocrat, as evidenced by the hyphenated name.

It's rather amusing how Solzhenitsyn transformed from a fiery critic of the Bolshevik regime into an impassioned champion of Russian statehood. One can hardly doubt that, had he lived long enough, he'd be firmly in Putin's corner, perhaps even offering a few choice quotes for the occasion.

[JBS]

It's rather amusing how Solzhenitsyn transformed from a fiery critic of the Bolshevik regime into an impassioned champion of Russian statehood. One can hardly doubt that, had he lived long enough, he'd be firmly in Putin's corner, perhaps even offering a few choice quotes for the occasion.

I'm not sure transformed is the right word. He was hostile to Ukrainian independence from the start. And he chose to go back to Russia instead of remaining in the U.S. But his nationalism was already apparent in 1978, when he gave the commencement address at Harvard. I remember the reaction from Western moderates realizing he was not an Enlightenment-style liberal.  Apparently he thought of Communism as an aberration, a foreign intrusion into the soul.of Mother Russia.

[AnotherSpin]

I'm not sure transformed is the right word. He was hostile to Ukrainian independence from the start. And he chose to go back to Russia instead of remaining in the U.S. But his nationalism was already apparent in 1978, when he gave the commencement address at Harvard. I remember the reaction from Western moderates realizing he was not an Enlightenment-style liberal.  Apparently he thought of Communism as an aberration, a foreign intrusion into the soul.of Mother Russia.

Perhaps you're right about the term "transformation." Solzhenitsyn, in opposing Bolshevism, likely viewed it as a manifestation of European Marxism, a foreign ideology imposed on Russia. Interestingly, Lenin himself saw Bolshevism as a natural evolution of Marxism. In this sense, Solzhenitsyn and Lenin, ironically, shared a similar perspective.

However, I see Bolshevism as something deeply rooted in Russia's own historical fabric, not an external import. Total power, the suppression of individual rights, terror, and violence have been constants in Russian reality — threads running unbroken from the past to the present. Bolshevism was not an aberration, but an organic continuation of this tradition.

[LKB]

We should do a movie version. I've never seen It's a Wonderful Life. 

We should, and you should see that one ( it's a marvelous film, and generates some great online reactions ).

[Florestan]

I remember the reaction from Western moderates realizing [Solzhenitsyn] was not an Enlightenment-style liberal

Well, Enlightenment-style liberalism is not the only type of liberalism. Burke, Chateaubriand and Tocqueville, though not subscribing to Enlightenment's rationalism, centralism and deism, were no less liberal than Voltaire, Kant and Adam Smith --- and it can be argued that the former's views on society and politics were more realistic than the latter's, their warnings and reservations being largely vindicated by history.

Beside, ideologically speaking, Communism itself is solidly rooted in the Enlightenment.   

[Elgarian Redux]

I admit that I find Sheherazade a bit lengthy and repetitive...  

I've been pondering this, so I was looking for something to listen to during lunch, and scrabbled about among my 563 different versions of Scheherazade. I picked out Reiner's 1960 recording with the Chicago SO, and put it in the player.

What a lunchtime it was. The music grabbed my attention from the very first moment, and I was bedazzled, uplifted, and moved, from beginning to end. 60 years of loving a piece of music, with this intensity, is a remarkable thing.

And that, I now see, explains my Glaring Omission of 'everything else he wrote'. Even if I nod smilingly at the Festival Overture, etc, there is simply nothing there that offers anything remotely comparable with this experience, for me. And I think that's OK, isn't it? There's no limit to how many times I can expect to enjoy a Cezanne Mont St Victoire, or a Rembrandt Self-portrait, even though my tastes may change and grow over the years.

But I still think it's a weird Glaring Omission, for all that.

[Karl Henning]

I've been pondering this, so I was looking for something to listen to during lunch, and scrabbled about among my 563 different versions of Scheherazade. I picked out Reiner's 1960 recording with the Chicago SO, and put it in the player.

What a lunchtime it was. The music grabbed my attention from the very first moment, and I was bedazzled, uplifted, and moved, from beginning to end. 60 years of loving a piece of music, with this intensity, is a remarkable thing.

I went to Wooster meaning simply to major in clarinet performance, when I decided to diversify and double-major in composition, the first assignment Jack Gallagher gave me was to analyze Scheherazade, and by an accident (mostly my as-yet-undeveloped library skills, the score I checked out was the keyboard reduction, so that part of my introduction to the music was mentally filling in, as I read along in the score, the instrumentation. The long and the short of it is, I got to love the piece entirely, then, and I love it no less today.

[Florestan]

I've been pondering this, so I was looking for something to listen to during lunch, and scrabbled about among my 563 different versions of Scheherazade. I picked out Reiner's 1960 recording with the Chicago SO, and put it in the player.

What a lunchtime it was. The music grabbed my attention from the very first moment, and I was bedazzled, uplifted, and moved, from beginning to end.

This was my reaction to my very first listening to Sheherazade as well. This is still my reaction to listening to it. I would recommend it to a newcomer to "classical" music without reservation, it has everything that defines the category at its best: glorious orchestration, memorable tunes, harmonic sophistication and instant appeal.

[Karl Henning]

Tangentially, very amusing use of the piece in an early Tom Hanks movie: The Man With One Red Shoe.

[Elgarian Redux]

Tangentially, very amusing use of the piece in an early Tom Hanks movie: The Man With One Red Shoe.

Never seen it, nor even heard of it. Is it worth seeking out?

[Karl Henning]

Never seen it, nor even heard of it. Is it worth seeking out?

Yes, good fun. Also has Dabney Coleman, Chas Durning, Carrie Fisher, Jim Belushi and Lori Singer.