Scheherazade: Never the Same Story Twice

September 1, 2024, 4:13 PM · My heart pounded as I waited for what seemed like an endless a-minor woodwind chord to finish. As concertmaster, I’d play the next note: a (hopefully) gorgeous high E to kick off the first entrance of Scheherazade.

My bow trembled above the string as I peeled my eyes for the conductor’s cue.

And she finally gave it, though not with her hands. Glaring down at me, she called out loudly enough for the entire orchestra to hear: “Well, Nathan, do you need an engraved invitation?”

That’s when I realized: the woodwind note doesn’t end, and my note doesn’t begin. They melt into each other.

When I told my parents about that evening’s Central Kentucky Youth Orchestra rehearsal, and of my unjust treatment by our tyrannical conductor, my dad replied, “Well, that’s why they call it the ‘hot seat!’”

The same piece twice

I have to hand it to Mrs. Stoyanovich: even now, as Concertmaster of the Boston Symphony, I still think back to that moment before big solo entrances and it never fails to put a smile on my face. But how different everything seemed when I was 14!

Back then, I had everything to prove. I was a freshman in high school, though in terms of social development I felt at least a year younger than that. The older kids sitting behind me either thought they could play the solos better, or knew they couldn’t and hoped that I’d screw up!

So my performance at the Singletary Center for the Arts was not only a chance for me to notch my first Scheherazade: it was a referendum on my ability to sit in the hot seat! It was a test of strength and character in the middle of hostile territory.

And it probably sounded that way to the audience.

You’ve undoubtedly heard the quote about never stepping in the same river twice by the Greek philosopher Heraclitus. You can say the same thing about music: for it’s not the same piece, and he’s not the same man. Or teenager, anyway.

If only I could go back and tell that kid that he’d have another chance, another trip around the merry-go-round. In fact, I could have told him that Scheherazade would come up again and again in his life, beckoning him to adventure.

But he wouldn’t have listened. Even now, 65-year-old me is desperately trying to get a message to me, and I’m tuning him out. You have to go around the circle for yourself.

Side by side

The next time I played Rimsky-Korsakov’s symphonic poem, it was a bit of a step up in ensemble: from the Central Kentucky Youth Orchestra to the Cleveland Orchestra!

A bit of context is in order: I was 16, and a student at the Kent/Blossom summer music program at Kent State University in Ohio. The highlight of the summer, then as now, was a “side-by-side” concert with the Cleveland Orchestra at the Blossom Music Center. In other words, each student shares a stand with a Cleveland Orchestra member. I was in the back of the 2nd violins, looking up at my first superstar conductor: Leonard Slatkin.

This time around, freed from the responsibilities of playing the solos, I could appreciate Scheherazade for the amazing story it told over the course of four musical tableaux. As I listened to acting Concertmaster Martin Chalifour spin the solo lines, I understood that there was a world of difference between proving yourself and telling a musical tale.

How was I to guess that I would share first stand with Martin for 13 years in the Los Angeles Philharmonic? I think about this every time I meet a 16-year-old violinist.

Out of context

For many years after that Blossom concert, Scheherazade ceased to exist for me as a piece of music, and instead became an “excerpt”... a requirement for any concertmaster or other “titled” audition.

But even if I still wanted to prove myself (to audition committees and conductors, rather than fellow teenagers) through Scheherazade, I at least had more musical curiosity in my 20s. I sought out great recordings of the piece in order to mine the violin solos for bowing and fingering ideas.

In other words, I aspired to steal from the best. Some of their ideas seemed to fit me right away, while others sounded amazing… but only in their hands. I toiled away in the practice room, emerging for my first auditions: for semi-professional groups like the Haddonfield Symphony, for pro groups with limited seasons like the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, and eventually for full-time positions in major orchestras.

This cycle with Scheherazade was certainly less glamorous than actually performing the solos and receiving rapturous applause. But I was sure it was a necessary step back to the hot seat.

As the years went by, though, I wondered: when would that day come? I was nearly 30, and a member of the Chicago Symphony's violin section. I’d lived a second 14 years since performing the Scheherazade solos.

A national tour

There used to be a shady lawyer character in The Simpsons named Lionel Hutz (voiced by the late Phil Hartman). One of his best lines was:

“I’ve argued in front of every judge in the state… often as a lawyer.”

Well, for the next fifteen years, I performed Scheherazade in every concert hall in the United States... never as a concertmaster!

I auditioned for the orchestras of (let’s see if I can alphabetize these): Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Ottawa, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Seattle.

I won’t alphabetize the halls, but: Symphony, Symphony, Severance, Meyerson, Jones, Disney, Orchestra, Fisher (now Geffen), Schnitzer, National, Verizon (now Anderson), Heinz, Benaroya… that’s a lot of amazing spaces in which to hear myself play unaccompanied!

But it was finally in Los Angeles, at the Hollywood Bowl (with stand partner Martin out of town and sending good wishes) that I got to perform the Scheherazade solos in their proper context once more.

One of my older colleagues came up afterwards and said, in her delightful Russian accent, “You played beautifully... I can tell you really know this music.” Well, I thought, I should say so!

“I could tell you were nervous in the beginning, but you didn’t need to be.” That was less encouraging... but she was right! I had forgotten my “engraved invitation” line. I’d have to remember that for next time, assuming there was a next time.

A younger violinist who was in the audience at the Bowl sent me an email, asking to play the solos for me because he envied my arm vibrato. I didn’t know I had an arm vibrato!

I asked my wife Akiko about it, and she described it as “relaxed.” I think she meant it as a compliment, but it sure sounded like a euphemism for “slow.”

I asked her to play the first solo, and in the middle of her first note, I realized I had to go back to the practice room for another trip around the practice carousel.

The lucky number

I count thirteen auditions from my list above. In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins is asked to join the dwarves’ adventure simply because they don’t want to embark with thirteen members. He is number fourteen: the lucky number.

I’ve never been superstitious, but my next audition - the. fourteenth - was another one in Boston, and this time my number was called. Of course, Scheherazade was a major component of the audition. But as part of this process, I actually got to sit in the seat for the solos, with the entire Boston Symphony on stage and Music Director Andris Nelsons conducting.

I made sure to conjure up Mrs. Stoyanovich before my first note.

In July, I had another chance at Rimsky-Korsakov at the Hollywood Bowl, this time side-by-side with Akiko, who made me nervous from less than a bow’s length away.

We boarded a plane for Boston the next morning, because for my first concert with the BSO three days later, I played (what else?) Scheherazade at Tanglewood, Maestro Nelsons on the podium. With Akiko in the audience, as well as my teacher Jaime Laredo, I was tempted to think of that concert as the culmination of all the times I’d played it in the past.

But I’d made that mistake before, and I wouldn’t make it again. Never the same piece, I remembered. This is just another cycle through the story.

Shaking hands with Boston Symphony Orchestra Music Director Andris Nelson. Photo by Hilary Scott.

Neither a beginning nor an ending

It’s tough to zoom out when you’re in the practice room, pushing hard toward what seems like the finish line: performance day, audition day, lesson day. But a cycle has neither a beginning nor an end.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a sucker for epic adventure tales. And the late Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series is certainly epic. Every book in the series begins with a version of the same passage, describing a seemingly insignificant event such as a gust of wind:

“The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.”

Later this month(September 19-22) I'll be offering a free four-day challenge, centered around "Scheherazade." Wherever you are in your own cycle, with your repertoire, I hope you’ll leave space for what came before and what will come after. To learn more about how this approach can transform your playing, visit me here.

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Replies

Richard Pairaudeau

September 3, 2024 at 09:01 AM · Thanks for this interesting and insightful article, and best wishes for life in Boston.

jean dubuisson

September 3, 2024 at 09:38 AM · thumbs up!

Laurie Niles

September 3, 2024 at 06:46 PM · Scheherazade "hot seat" with the LA Phil at the Hollywood Bowl and then with Boston at Tanglewood - all in the same WEEK! Wow!

Those are also radically different climates, both outdoor concerts, and with a plane trip in between. How did your violin feel about this? Were you using the Jack Benny Strad?

Bill Palmer

September 6, 2024 at 02:23 PM · Laurie brings up an interesting point — presumably the LAPhil is going to want its violin back if you aren’t playing their concerts. What will you be tucking under your chin?

Nathan Cole

September 8, 2024 at 12:10 AM · Yes, I played the "Jack Benny" both in Hollywood and at Tanglewood. For the latter concert, I got a taste of the heat and humidity I'd been warned about! It was a bit over 80 and humid enough that I needed to wipe down during rests.

The Boston Symphony owns a Stradivarius violin which I'll discover in two weeks in fact!

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