Though Sibelius’s music has come to define whatever Finnish music is supposed to sound like, he certainly wasn’t the country’s only active, turn-of-the-20th-century composer. Several years ago, I enthusiastically reviewed a CD of Oulu Sinfonia – Finland’s, and quite possibly the world’s, most northern orchestra – playing Finnish overtures under Rumon Gamba’s incisive and imaginative leadership.

This CD is the third in Chandos’s series of Finnish music for the stage and I’m even more impressed. Although Sibelius showed little interest in opera, he composed several suites of incidental music for stage productions such as The Tempest, King Christian II and Pelléas and Mélisande. In 1912 his Danish publishers commissioned him to accompany a scenario by the playwright Poul Knudsen (1889-1974). Knudsen had taken much of the plot outline and detail for Scaramouche, reflecting the immense early 20th-century interest in clowns and the commedia dell’arte as well as in erotic desire, death and the macabre. Scaramouche had various guises: a clown, buffoon, even a swashbuckling hero played by Stewart Granger in the eponymous 1952 costume romp.

The plot here revolves around a tragic love triangle and the suite was carefully chosen by conductor, Rumon Gamba himself. It starts with a delicate minuet, depicting the  aristocratic surroundings of Leilon and Blondelaine’s residence and preparations for a ball. Leilon summons the musicians and they strike up a rhythmically charged bolero, notable for its threateningly erotic overtones. The entry of Scaramouche, a hunched-backed dwarf (think Mime from Wagner’s Ring Cycle) who plays the viola (of all things), is cleverly dovetailed with further rounds of the bolero, so that he slips into the orchestral texture almost unnoticed. 

The dramatic and highly articulated instrumental dialogue as he entraps Blondelaine is especially powerful – although there is no actual sound of a viola – and it is followed by the physical abandonment of her dance: the strangely dissonant horn writing is a premonition of the violence to follow. She is bewitched by his performance and begins to dance wildly. After Scaramouche’s departure, the ball guests proceed to dinner, but Blondelaine suddenly hears Scaramouche’s viola in the distance and is irresistibly pulled away. The guests search for her in vain. In Act II, Leilon laments his loss and Blondelaine reappears, unable to explain her absence. Scaramouche is revealed hiding behind the door of her chamber, and Blondelaine seizes Leilon’s dagger and stabs him. Leilon and his wife can now be happily reunited, but just as their love seems complete, Blondelaine hears Scaramouche’s viola once again, calling from beyond the grave. Seized with horror, she begins to dance once more, becoming increasingly frenetic until she collapses, dead, on stage. The final episode is shaped by a particularly beautiful flute melody although surely a viola one would have been more poignant. All the music on this CD is worth hearing but the Sibelius is certainly the jewel in the crown and the Oulu Sinfonia is on the top of its game, as are the conductor and the recording team. The woodwinds in particular are stunning in their pellucid tone and ensemble. The waltzes are gorgeously phrased. The only curious thing about this music is that the sweetness and charm largely belie the lurid subject matter!

If Sibelius enjoyed a fame which rested on his orchestral output, his younger contemporary Selim Palmgren (1878– 1951) was best known largely as a composer of piano works, including five concertos and many suites and miniatures. Palmgren  also wrote for the theatre, and his score for the fairy-tale play Tuhkimo ja kuninkaantytär (Tuhkimo and the Princess), based on a text by the Finnish playwright Larin-Kyösti, dates from 1902–03. Larin-Kyösti’s play recounts the adventures of a passionate youth, Tuhkimo, and combines features of the familiar Cinderella story with elements drawn from a wide range of folk tales and fables. 

In Palmgren’s concert suite, the Prelude immediately creates a sense of enchantment: shimmering string tremolandos, harp glissandi, and glockenspiel preface a characterful clarinet melody which becomes the principal theme. It could be mistaken for Delibes or Massenet! The second movement, a jaunty, rustic musette, recalls a favourite number from one of Sibelius’s King Christian II of 1898. Yet more lovely woodwind playing in the pastoral Intermezzo follows, which includes prominent writing for the solo cor anglais. The Dance of the Forest Fairies has a gossamer lightness that recalls Mendelssohn’s inimitable scherzo from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. An elegant Waltz follows and a further Intermezzo, displaying darker and more foreboding instrumental colours. 

Einer England’s (1916-1999) suite from the score for the 1952 film The White Reindeer cleaves more to the gothic horror. It is set in Lappi (Lapland), in the far north of Finland, and is a folk-horror tale that revolves around the shape-shifting character of a young woman, Pirita, who seeks the help of a local shaman, while her husband, Aslak, is away reindeer herding. The spell cast by him goes wrong and every full moon Pirita assumes the form of a murderous white reindeer, terrorising the local area. A hunt for the reindeer ensues, and it is Aslak who finally kills the animal, only to watch Piria regaining her human form as she dies in her husband’s arms. Here, the orchestration appropriately assumes a Mahlerian darkness, especially in the ominous brass. 

Kalervo Tuukkanen’s (1909-1979) Christmas Suite reminded me a little of Leroy Anderson, by which I mean no disrespect, with its delicate lullaby of strings and harp depicting the manger scene – the most exquisite piece on the entire CD.

Listen on Apple Music

Title: Scenes from Finland
Works: Music by Sibelius, Palmgren, Englund & Tuukanen
Performer: Ounu Sinfonia/Rumon Gamba
Label: CHANDOS CHSA5391 (SACD