1001 Tales Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Rimsky-Korsakov

Exeter Cathedral, Exeter

Scheherazade is a triumph of imagination over experience. It is a feast of sumptuous colours and brilliant instrumental effects. The stories of Aladdin, Sinbad the Sailor and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves have passed into folk legend in the west. Let us be transported to the east, let the story commence! More tales are told of knights of old and damsels in distress in Glinka’s rip-roaring overture, whilst Tchaikovsky’s pas de deux is a dance duet between a Sugar Plum Fairy and her fairytale prince. Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.27 was the last he wrote before his premature death. With occasional feelings of foreboding, it contains hints of a style which Mozart might have later used, both refined and yet monumental at the same time.