Heralded by a blaze of brass, a solo violin spins a slow, languorous line to bewitch and beguile... 'Scheherazade鈥檚 opening is the musical equivalent of whispering 鈥極nce upon a time鈥� and Rimsky-Korsakov uses all his orchestral wizardry in these dramatic scenes from the 1001 Nights. If that violin represents the seductive voice of Scheherazade, there鈥檚 a more mournful 鈥� if no less passionate 鈥� equivalent in Bloch鈥檚 'Schelomo' where the cello embodies the soul of King Solomon. Pablo Ferr谩ndez is the soloist and our Associate Conductor Alpesh Chauhan conducts. The concert opens with another musical portrait: Hamlet, a dramatic and tormented rendering of the Danish prince that makes use of incidental music Tchaikovsky wrote for Shakespeare鈥檚 play.
