Scenes From Finland – Rumon Gamba

Sibelius’s Scaramouche, a ballet-pantomime commissioned in 1912 by his publishers, for a play by Poul Knudsen. His story line reflects the immense early twentieth-century interest in clowns and the commedia dell’arte, and in erotic desire, death, and the macabre, the same phenomena that produced Stravinsky’s Pétrouchka and Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire.

Best known as a composer of piano music, Sibelius’ younger contemporary Selim Palmgren also wrote music for the theatre, and his score for the fairy-tale play Tuhkimo ja kuninkaantytär (Tuhkimo and the Princess), 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.

Einar Englund studied composition with Palmgren (and later Aaron Copland). His soundtrack for Erik Blomberg’s 1952 film Valkoinen peura (The White Reindeer) was particularly acclaimed and won best prize for original music in the Jussi Awards (the Finnish Oscars) in the year of its release. Kalervo Tuukkanen taught for three years at Viipuri University before serving as Kapellmeister in Pori, on Finland’s Baltic coast, in 1942– 44. He was one of the founding members of Suomen Säveltäyät (the Finnish Composer’s Association) and his composition Karhunpyynti (Bear Hunting) was awarded a silver medal in the 1948 Cultural Olympics in London (where Finland impressively topped the medal table). Joulusarja (Christmas Suite) is taken from his 1953 score for a production of the play Die Erzählung des letzten Hirten (The Tale of the Last Shepherd) and its five movements covers the key moments in the Christmas story.