It is a student work composed when Sibelius was about twenty at a time when he was studying at the Helsinki Conservatoire. The "intimate voices", whatever they are, played a central role in the composer's recovery.Īnother particularly attractive feature about this CD is the coupling of the Quartet in A minor. This piece represents a sense of rising from pain into some sort of light although the D minor is seriously maintained to the end. I say ‘uplifting’ because the work was composed just after Sibelius underwent a potentially life-threatening throat operation. They will have spent many a happy hour working on this uplifting piece and have reached conclusions represented by this interpretation. For me it is sufficient to remember that the Leipziger Streichquartett, who were formed in 1988 and who have made about seventy recordings, have played this work on numerous occasions. The present performance captures the work marvellously although, as I say, I am not able to make comparisons. Like the Fifth Symphony the form of this work, as you see, is unusual and uniquely Sibelius. After that, to provide balance, there are two movements, an Allegretto which reminded me of the sound-world of the middle movement of the Fifth Symphony (begun initially in 1915) and a windy Allegro.
This marks the central point of the work but at the heart of this movement is a set of three pp chords over which Sibelius wrote the words Voces intimae. The longest movement, at well over ten minutes, is an Adagio. Then comes a very short and scurrying Vivace which may well remind you of the finale of the Third Symphony (1907) written just a few years before. I see the pattern of the work like this: two relatively short movements – an Andante leading into an Allegro moderato. The D minor String Quartet Voces intimae is in five movements.
I'll just mention three discs: with Voces Intimae the Tempera (BIS - review) couple the B flat Quartet, the Gabrieli (Chandos CHAN8742) couple Sibelius’s Piano Quintet and the Fitzwilliam Quartet (Decca Eloquence- review) couple it, surprisingly, with Delius. At the latest count there seem to be at least eight versions of Voces Intimae in the current catalogue so an attempt to compare is likely to be longwinded. Opportunities to hear the chamber works ‘live’ are quite rare so it’s good that we have a choice of performances on CD. There are also a few pieces for strings and piano like the Piano Trio of 1884. Then comes this A minor quartet of 1889 and there's at least one other apart from the B flat quartet known as Voces Intimae. There are, for example some single movements for quartet composed when he was a young man. That's fair enough but he certainly wrote pieces for chamber groupings. It may well be that it is not chamber music that immediately comes to mind when you think of Sibelius. MUSIKPRODUKTION DABRINGHAUS UND GRIMM 3071957-2 Konzerthaus der Abtei Marienmünster, 22-24 January 2016 String Quartet in D minor Voces Intimae Op. Support us financially by purchasing this from
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