Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade, Op. 35 - III. The Young Prince and The Young Princess: Andantino quasi allegretto

Andantino quasi allegretto — Pochissimo più mosso — Come prima — Pochissimo più animato


curious to know what everyone thinks of the customary "naming" a movement by its tempo changes. what happens to the custom once we get into the late 19th century and every section of a movement has a different tempo? seems silly. i don't know that there are abbreviation standards in place for this sort of thing though. i expect sometimes we just take the tempo of the main body of the movement, because usually the changes are either very close to the beginning, as an introduction to the main part, or towards the end, as the movement speeds up or winds down.


please refer to previous post for the video with the first half of this movement, am trying to avoid having to post any of these twice.


this movement is supposed to be fairly simple both in melodic content and in form, which is basic ternary. we have a very sweet almost pastoral theme, which is given first by violins. (this is also the only movement which does not begin with the violin solo, but she has her say at the end of the movement...) some program notes call this a love scene; i think it's a bit more innocent than that, but who knows.
the theme is circled around lots of instruments, and also gets lots of ornamentation in the form of a sort of rising and falling skitter or scale, usually in the upper strings or winds. it is in E flat, so it acts as a sort of neapolitan to the dominant, d minor/major. (the movement itself is in G.)

celibidache takes the middle section, which starts at 9:14, quiiiite a bit more slowly than is customary. it is introduced by a snare drum, and a dancelike theme forms the central part of the movement, first given by the clarinet, but then accented by more percussion (we get the introduction of the triangle here) and pizz from the string section. the quietness of the percussion writing, and some of the wind solos (i like the brassy trumpet one, which is so honeyed that it reminds me of some early jazz).


we go back to the original opening matter at 1:45, with the violins. scheherazade's voice comes back in for a little bit, turning into an extended string crossing arpeggiatic cadenza. as that's going on, the romantic theme of the movement comes back, with the violin finally snapping out of it to cadence with that theme.
this last segment at last shows some development of that theme, kind of interestingly late for that sort of thing. the shifting of keys typical to developments comes in around 5:00. the movement closes with a sort of blend of the more sprightly elements from the middle section and the romanticism of the main theme.