Composer: Jean Sibelius
Performer: Bendik Goldstein, Roi Ruottinen
Orchestra: Turku Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor: Leif Segerstam
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Naxos
Catalogue: 8573511
Release: 2015
Size: 1.08 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Scaramouche, Op. 71
Act I
01. Scene 1, Lento assai
02. Scene 2, Lento assai
03. Scene 3, Lento assai – Andante con moto
04. Scene 4, Tempo di bolero
05. Scene 5, Lento – Tempo di bolero
06. Scene 6, Tempo di valse
07. Scene 7, Poco moderato
08. Scene 8, Poco moderato
09. Scene 9, Tempo di valse
10. Scene 10, Adagio – Allegro
Act II
11. Scene 1, Meno tranquillo
12. Scene 2, Allegretto
13. Scene 3, Andantino
14. Scene 4, Allegretto
15. Scene 5, Allegretto – Andantino
16. Scene 6, Tranquillo assai
17. Scene 7, Andantino – Meno tranquillo
18. Scene 8, Allegretto – Allegro
19. Scene 9, Allegro
20. Scene 10, Andante
21. Scene 11, Grave assai
The eloquent power of Jean Sibelius’s symphonies and other core orchestral works has overshadowed his prolific output in other genres, including significant scores for the theatre. The commission to compose music for the tragic pantomime Scaramouche caused Sibelius much stress and frustration, but on its première the composer was able to note “great success in Copenhagen” in his diary. With the exception of his one opera, Scaramouche is Sibelius’s only continuous dramatic score, the story of the sinister hunchbacked dwarf’s bewitching musicianship and evil intent taking us from innocent charm to a nightmarish conclusion.
The beautifully played Sibelius recordings by conductor Leif Segerstam and the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra have often been revelatory, not least in the much-neglected area of the composer’s theater music. Segerstam found much of interest in the composer’s incidental music, the forerunner of the soundtracks Sibelius might well have written if he had lived in our time. But Scaramouche, Op. 71, composed in 1913, is something else again: it is music for a pantomime, a genre not much in evidence for today (although it certainly has affinities with the music video). The action of the mostly wordless play (there were a few spoken passages, excised in this performance) was continuous, and so, thus, was Sibelius’ music. It is thus a genuine piece of dramatic music, of which there is very little in the Sibelius catalog, and for the most part it has more to do with the developmental thinking of the symphonies than it does with the incidental music scores.
Consider the clear adumbrations of the Symphony No. 7 in C major, Op. 105, not written until some years later (sample the little “Andantino” theme from Act II, Scene 3, track 13). The music is closely tied to the action of the pantomime, which is summarized in the booklet notes, but it can also stand on its own. Highly recommended to those who have been collecting Segerstam’s whole series, for it shows a face of Sibelius that the other entries have not shown. Scaramouche has rarely, if ever, been recorded in its complete form, and it’s something of a lost masterwork.