![]() ![]() While sentimental and deeply personal, there’s no overwhelming bleakness or tragedy here. Have you ever had that kind of conversation, either with a person/people in person or on the phone, one that drifts into unexpectedly personal territory? In a good way… That’s what I’m hearing here. The effect here is almost like we’ve warmed up in conversation, gotten through the small talk, have gotten comfortable with each other and are getting to the real meat of the conversation, the personal things, stuff you can’t just jump into right off the bat. Mini-orchestra is no criticism, but there are thinner passages here, some real poignant climaxes, and powerful pauses. Some of the bigness of the sound, the symphonic nature, reminds me a bit of Grieg’s string quartet. Here, though, it does sound a bit more intimate in texture, four real voices rather than a mini-orchestra. The adagio di molto is perhaps the heart of the work, not just because it’s the central movement, or the longest, but because it arguably captures the spirit of the whole work, and might be the most quartet-like in its transparency and use of voices. It’s a bit lighter, but feels like a spinoff of sorts from the first movement, sharing some of its thematic material, and feeling more like an afterthought or aside rather than a fully formed movement of its own, leading to the central and longest movement. In some contrast to the brooding nature of the first movement, the second movement is the first of two scherzos, and it is by far the shortest of the five movements, at only two and a half minutes. In fact, in later years, Sibelius would later comment on this quality of the work, stating that “The melodic material is good but the harmonic material could be ‘lighter’, and even ‘more like a quartet.'” We’ll talk about that again shortly, in the response that the work got. It sounds probably not unlike you’d imagine a mature Sibelius quartet to sound if you’re familiar with the symphonies. This is not a diaphanous, transparent texture, and that’s not a criticism. John Henken is cited in the Wikipedia article for the work when it says that “The first movement contrasts “murmurous figuration with firm chords”.” One of the most obvious areas of note is the thickness of the sound. It’s closed, blinds drawn, fireplace cracking, snowflakes falling outside, our conversationalists speaking huddled around in a room so as not to disturb the stillness or wake those in another room.īut that’s not to say the music is all whispers and quietude, for it is not. Besides being more than a century distant from Haydn or early Beethoven, Sibelius’s approach is different in that it’s not a casual, friendly conversation that we hear from other quartets. The ‘inner voices’ subtitle is in reference to a “conversational quality” about the work, but this “inwardness” makes it different than, say, a quartet from Haydn, or even one of Sibelius’s more contemporary composers. The work has a duration of about a half hour, and is divided into five movements, as follows:Ĭomposition began in December of 1908, in London, and was apparently finished within a few months. It was then nearly two decades before he wrote another quartet, today’s work, completed in 1909, putting it between the composition of the third and fourth symphonies. 4) was a work in B flat dating from 1890. He had two early quartets, in E flat and in A minor, but his first quartet to be granted an opus number (no. This most famous (and only) mature work in the form is at least his fourth. ![]() We’ll get to that soon.Īs for chamber work goes, Sibelius had a number of early efforts in the string quartet genre. It’s been a very long time since we’ve seen Sibelius on the blog (coming up on two years) and even longer since we’ve seen one of his symphonies (about three and a half years). You knew we wouldn’t leave Sibelius out of the Finnish series right? The composer, to his wife about his quartet The kind of thing that brings a smile to your lips at the hour of death.
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