A Lonely Ski Trail Archive

SIBELIUS: Swanwhite; Odian; A Lonely Ski Trail; The Countess’ Portrait – Segerstam cond. – Naxos

by Audiophile Audition | Jan 27, 2016 | Classical CD Reviews

Segerstam extends his Sibelius commemoration with rare scores of incidental music. SIBELIUS: Swanwhite – Complete Incidental Music, Op. 54; Odian – Complete Incidental Music, Op. 8; A Lonely Ski Trail; The Countess’ Portrait – Riko Eklundh, narr./ Turku Philharmonic Orch./ Leif Segerstam – Naxos 8.573341, 63:34 (9/25/15) ****: As part of the 150th Sibelius anniversary celebrations, conductor Leif Segerstam leads a disc (rec. Jan-Sept 2014) of the composer’s assorted theater incidental music, beginning with his 1908 setting for August Strindberg’s Swanwhite. The playwright Strindberg fell under the spell of Maurice Maeterlinck’s symbolist play Pelleas et Melisande. Swanwhite was Strindberg’s response to Maeterlinck’s fusion of dream and reality. It is a story in the fairly-tale mold, about a fifteen-year-old princess who lives in a fairy-tale castle with her father, a duke, and with her wicked stepmother, the latter of whom keeps Swanwhite unkempt. The princess Swanwhite has been promised to the king of a neighboring country, but she falls in love with the prince, who is the king’s messenger. The story shares several motifs with the Tristan myth; for instance, the lovers will share a bed which has a sword placed between them. For the play Sibelius wrote a horn call […]