The Bachtrack Concert Club is a series of videos personally curated by our editors, who hand-picked pieces from the fantastic performances in our on-demand archive.
Mark Pullinger curates a programme of works by Rimsky-Korsakov.
Scroll down to watch, read the programme and see related articles.
Russian Easter Festival Overture
The Suite from The Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya
Scheherazade
Rimsky-Korsakov is a composer very close to my heart. Everyone knows his symphonic suite Scheherazade – based on the exotic tales from The Arabian Nights – but there was much more to him than that. First and foremost, Rimsky considered himself an opera composer and I’ve included the colourful suite from his pantheistic epic The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya, often referred to as “the Russian Parsifal”, as the centrepiece of this evening’s programme. To open proceedings, there’s the glittering Russian Easter Festival Overture, before concluding with that beguiling storyteller herself, Scheherazade.
- Mark Pullinger
| Stefan Blunier | Conductor |
| Philharmonie Zuidnederland | |
| Radio Filharmonisch Orkest | |
| Sir Mark Elder | Conductor |
| Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra | |
| Claus Peter Flor | Conductor |
- Phillip Huscher's programme notes on the Russian Easter Festival Overture for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
- Neil Cardew Fanning's description of The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh for AllMusic.
- Marin Alsop's introduction to Scheherazade for NPR.
- Mark Pullinger's blog post on Rimsky-Korsakov's operas.
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