This recording is the culmination of that project, and the latest album from one of Australia's most respected ensembles. The layering of two sublimely beautiful themes works its way through to the absolute stillness of the ending - a true 'hold your breath' moment." This album also presents the early A minor quartet - a work in which we can hear the influences of Beethoven, Grieg and Mendelssohn, but also the emergence of the true and distinctive Sibelius sound.Ģ015 marked the 150th anniversary of the birth of Jean Sibelius, and the Flinders Quartet have spent the year immersed in his much-neglected chamber music - including travelling to Sibelius' homeland, Finland, to perform all of his works for string quartet. At the centre of the work stands an exquisite slow movement, marked with the 'voces intimae' inscription that gives the quartet its name.įlinders' cellist Zoe Knighton describes this movement as the "heart and soul of the quartet. 'Intimate Voices' is a perfect musical arch that reaches across five movements - from the sheer delicacy of the opening to the frenzied finale. As it turned out, the hour of his death was almost 50 years away, but his analysis of his last great chamber work as 'something wonderful' certainly holds true. Sibelius wrote his string quartet 'Intimate Voices' during a period of crisis, both financial and health. It is the only major work for string quartet of Sibeliuss mature period. However, he made an exception in 1909, when he wrote the string quartet in D minor (Voces intimae). Be assured also, it will be rushed into print. Although Sibelius wrote dozens of chamber music works in his youth, after the year 1891 he almost completely neglected the composition of trios, quartets and quintets. Yet have no doubt that some diligent attic explorer in Illinois will someday discover the equivalent of "Where I Went on My Summer Vacation" by Ernest Hemingway, age 12. 14 'Death and the Maiden' & Sibelius: String Quartet 'Intimate Voices' de Ehnes Quartet en qualité Hi-Res sur Qobuz. But there is a danger of being carried away by such matters.įor most Hemingway readers, the Nick Adams stories are his "first" narratives of travel and adventure. Écoutez en illimité ou téléchargez Schubert: String Quartet No. Firsts, lasts, mosts and fewests consume us. But fans, whether of baseball or of music, love statistics and precedents. Sibelius, to his evident misfortune, lost or forgot some juvenilia, these items among them. And it may be that we have a case of criminal cradle-robbing on our hands: the musical equivalent of child abuse.īrahms had the good sense to burn what he didn't want us to remember. To take matters a step further, did Sibelius, as he was leaving behind a creative life, have the moral right to demand that history accept "Intimate Voices" as his only string quartet? Here there will be loud arguments. Did he want us to remember it as his only string quartet? Probably. The first question to be asked is whether Sibelius himself thought of "Intimate Voices" as his only string quartet. Thus the issue arose, was a correction in order? I argued for what you are reading now. A reader wrote in, politely and correctly informing me of "three seldom-performed earlier quartets," which date "from the composer's youth and were apparently 'forgotten' for many years." Another reader conveyed the same information and made a similar plea on behalf of an incomplete quartet by Grieg, who had also been said to have produced only the one quartet recorded here. A RECENT record review in these pages described Sibelius's "Intimate Voices" as his only string quartet.
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