Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, Leif Segerstam - Jean Sibelius: Scaramouche, Complete Ballet (2015)

Saramouche is, after Kullervo, Sibelius’ largest work in any form, and a strange one it is. Originally the composer thought he had been commissioned to provide a relatively brief suite of dances, only to discover (oops!) that the plan was for him to write a full-length score of continuous music to a scenario that oozes fin-de-siècle decadence. Here’s the deal:

A bunch of bored aristocrats pretends to enjoy a party. Leilon, the host, is dysfunctionally married to Blondelaine, who is frustrated allegedly because he won’t dance with her, but we all know that the dance business is symbolic for other husbandly things that also aren’t going too well. Suddenly Scaramouche, your typical hunchbacked viola-playing dwarf turns up, and with his magic viola he hypnotizes the horny Blondelaine into following him into the woods where he allegedly has his way with her. So naturally she stabs him (in upper-class fashion) as a way of making up with Leilon, who delightedly watches her dance herself to death before himself going insane. End of story.

I offer for your consideration the scene of Blondelaine’s Dance of Doom (sound clip). As you can plainly hear, Elektra she ain’t, and it’s all done rather more effectively in works such as Zemlinsky’s A Florentine Tragedy. While very much of its time, Sibelius was not really comfortable writing decadent sleeze (it was a Viennese specialty), though the scoring is imaginative and the music has plenty of otherworldly atmosphere. You can decide for yourself if seventy-one minutes of this is more than you need.

Sibelius did make a suite out of the full score, but if you’re going to do Scaramouche at all you might as well have the whole thing. Järvi’s version on BIS represents the only competition to this newcomer, and it’s very good, but Segerstam captures the music’s weirdness with greater relish and Sibelius completists will surely need this performance to fill out their collections. As the final release in Segerstams’s first rate survey of Sibelius’ theater music for Naxos, you really can’t do better.

Review by David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Exact Audio Copy V1.1 from 23. June 2015

EAC extraction logfile from 27. January 2016, 22:44

Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, Leif Segerstam / Sibelius - Scaramouche

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foobar2000 1.2 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1
log date: 2016-02-02 16:09:26

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Analyzed: Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, Leif Segerstam / Sibelius - Scaramouche
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DR Peak RMS Duration Track
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DR12 -12.91 dB -29.88 dB 0:56 01-Act I - Scene 1: Lento assai
DR12 -10.66 dB -29.02 dB 2:10 02-Act I - Scene 2: [Lento assai]
DR14 -8.10 dB -27.51 dB 3:34 03-Act I - Scene 3: [Lento assai] - Andante con moto
DR12 -9.43 dB -25.67 dB 2:52 04-Act I - Scene 4: Tempo di bolero
DR16 -0.21 dB -23.66 dB 7:48 05-Act I - Scene 5: Lento - Tempo di bolero - Lento assai
DR13 -6.65 dB -26.82 dB 3:07 06-Act I - Scene 6: Tempo di valse
DR11 -11.09 dB -25.43 dB 0:49 07-Act I - Scene 7: Poco moderato
DR11 -0.20 dB -20.64 dB 2:20 08-Act I - Scene 8: [Poco moderato]
DR10 -13.80 dB -28.53 dB 0:41 09-Act I - Scene 9: Tempo di valse
DR12 -7.87 dB -27.33 dB 6:43 10-Act I - Scene 10: Adagio - Allegro - Adagio
DR11 -18.65 dB -41.49 dB 0:23 11-Act II - Scene 1: Meno tranquillo
DR11 -18.82 dB -34.71 dB 0:28 12-Act II - Scene 2: Allegretto
DR11 -12.06 dB -31.09 dB 1:27 13-Act II - Scene 3: Andantino
DR11 -15.49 dB -36.57 dB 0:25 14-Act II - Scene 4: Allegretto
DR12 -8.98 dB -26.14 dB 3:26 15-Act II - Scene 5: [Allegretto] - Andantino
DR13 -14.92 dB -35.11 dB 2:31 16-Act II - Scene 6: Tranquillo assai
DR16 -0.21 dB -26.35 dB 7:47 17-Act II - Scene 7: [Andantino] – Meno tranquillo - Lento - Moderato - Allegro …
DR13 -21.11 dB -40.76 dB 3:30 18-Act II - Scene 8: Allegretto – Allegro
DR13 -8.72 dB -27.79 dB 4:00 19-Act II - Scene 9: [Allegro]
DR17 -0.22 dB -25.39 dB 15:32 20-Act II - Scene 10: Andante – Lento assai - Andantino
DR9 -14.29 dB -28.80 dB 0:30 21-Act II - Scene 11: [Grave assai]
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Number of tracks: 21
Official DR value: DR12

Samplerate: 44100 Hz
Channels: 2
Bits per sample: 16
Bitrate: 474 kbps
Codec: FLAC
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