"The suite written in 1889 , when the composer was in his forty five , belongs to the brilliant school of the Spanish Caprice and the Easter Overture . Playing with ideas of the pseudo Oriental order to which his reading of the Arabian Nights gave rise , and to which many Russians were attracted , he devised a group of fantasies with some thematic material in common but without maintaining a quite exclusive use for each individual theme . The final result was an amazingly saga of four interludes : The Sea and Sinbad's ship ; the story of the Kalendar Prince , The young Prince and the Princess and Festival Wreck . Ernest Ansermet and the Conservatory of Paris Concert Society Orchestra gave a terrific performance with Piero Merini as violin solo . All we know the artistic triumphs under the orders of Ataulfo Argenta , Pierino Gamba and Albert Wolff among other brilliant conductors. Consider this version among the three best in the market , the other two to my mind are Fricsay and the Berlin Symphony and the unique , exquisite and may be never unsurpassed version of Isaac Dobrowen and the Philarmonia Orchestra . "