Ex. 4-13: Orientale

Orientale is No. 9 of Kaleidoscope, a set of 24 short pieces for violin and piano. Cui wrote them in 1893, when he was 58, and they were published in Berlin the next year. The pieces have French titles that name a mood or a dance, such as "In the Mist" and "Love Letter."

In Cui's time, Russian composers liked to write music that sounded "Eastern," like the music they imagined in the lands to the south and east of Russia. The best-known example is Scheherazade (1888) by Rimsky-Korsakov, one of Cui's close friends. Cui himself had used this sound many years earlier, in one of his first operas, which is set in the mountains of the Caucasus.

Of the 24 pieces, only Orientale is still well known. Two young star violinists who had studied in St Petersburg recorded it in 1912 and 1917. It was soon printed for other instruments too, such as cello, organ and piano, and for the small orchestras that played in theatres. A well-known English cellist recorded it in 1915.

The version in this app was arranged for solfège practice.

From the album Music for Viola and Cello (2016), played on the viola by Herbert Downes
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