Sonic Asymmetry

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: “Scheherezade op.35”

ニコライ・リムスキー ・ コルサコフ：「シェヘルザード37」

TIME COMMITMENT: 52 minutes

This sonic fresco strikes as expansively maverick in its sedately sibilant solos, but the undulating imagery of open spaces remains forever compelling.  The composer manufactured a veritable pinnacle of symphonic synesthesia, but he did it in a starkly representational art form – a meticulous, graphic poem resonating with the sounds of the steppe.  Subversively, this Lansdschaft for our ears has remained lively and relevant, unlike, say, Sergei Bondarchuk’s long forgotten movies, which were intended as pictorial tributes to those endless vistas.

MUSIC

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheherazade_(Rimsky-Korsakov)

A REFLECTION

Night, snow and sand make the form

Of my slim fatherland

All silence is in its long line

All foam emerges from its marine beard

All coal fills it with mysterious kisses

Pablo Neruda: “Discoverers”