Mlada Nicolaj / Nicolai / Nikolay Rimskij-Korsakov / Arr. Gregor Kovacic

Titel / Title: Mlada
Untertitel / Subtitle: Suite from the Opera
Herausgeber / Publisher: Baton Music
Instrumentation: concert band
Produkttyp / Product: Partitur + Stimmen
Serie / Series: Baton Music orchestral series

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's opera Mlada' is a Wagner-influenced epic teeming with national conflicts and battles in the spirit world; it draws on Russian myth, yet contains parallels to Goethe's Faust as well, making for a formidable challenge indeed for performer and listener. However, Rimsky-Korsakov was enough of a professional to prepare a short suite of catchy dances as he readied the opera for its premiere in 1892. A short introduction features an upward-spiraling melody, introduced in a delicate clarinet solo, that soon spreads to the rest of the orchestra. The three national dances which follow are, in the opera, performed for a vision of Cleopatra; they sound perfectly innocuous here, shorn of context. The Redowa' is a stately but energetic Bohemian dance full of ebullient trills and strong rhythms. The Lithuanian' Dance that follows is dark-colored and dashing, with the rhythm and melody traded quickly between sections of the orchestra. The Indian Dance' allows Rimsky-Korsakov to indulge his genius for composing what the Russians thought of as Oriental' melodies, sinuous yet cheery and played on felicitous combinations of woodwinds with snare drum underpinning. The final piece, the Procession of the Nobles' that opens the second act of the opera, is by far the most famous; with its high-spirited brass fanfares and boisterous percussion, it comes extremely close to being a march in 3/4 time, and provides a rousing conclusion to a suite that doesn't exactly recall the opera from which it was drawn, but has its own charms.