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This week, Donald Macleod traverses the dramatic and vivid musical landscapes of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: a vital, fascinating, and perhaps under-appreciated figure in the evolution of the canon of western art music. His life alone was extraordinary: beginning as a cadet in the Tsar’s navy, it ended soon after the tumult of the 1905 revolution; the prospect of far greater upheaval, national and international, looming. The series celebrates many of Rimsky-Korsakov’s most popular favourites, including the Flight of the Bumblebee, the Russian Festival Overture and Capriccio Espagnol, and Scheherazade, which is heard in instalments across the week: there also are opportunities to hear some of the symphonic works and chamber music; and a focus on the operas, which perhaps deserve to be heard more often than they generally are.

Today, we complete our series of daily instalments of Scheherazade, sample some of the late operas, reflect on Rimsky-Korsakov’s legacy, and also consider the span of a life that began under the Tsars and ended in the midst of Bolshevik revolutionary upheaval.

Scheherazade, Op 35 (Finale)
Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra
Vasily Petrenko, conductor

Against the Cruel Crag from Sadko
Feodor Chaliapin, bass
Studio Orchestra
Albert Coates, conductor

The Invisible City of Kitzeh Suite (A Hymn to Nature)
Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Neeme Järvi, conductor

The Golden Cockerel Suite
Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra
David Zinman, conductor

Four Songs, Op 2 (No 2, The Nightingale and the Rose)
Greta Bradman, soprano
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra
Luke Dollman, conductor

Produced by Lyndon Jones for ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Audio Wales and West