MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


 REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

alternatively
CD: Crotchet
Download: Classicsonline


Jean SIBELIUS (1865-1957)
String Quartets 1890-1922
Adagio in D minor JS 12 (1890) [12:15]
String Quartet in B flat major op. 4 (1890) [29:42]
String Quartet in D minor Voces Intimae op. 56 (1909) [29:48]
Voces Intimae String Quartet - preliminary ending [0:32]
Andante Festivo JS 34a (1922) [5:11]
Tempera Quartet (Laura Vikman (violin); Silva Koskela (violin); Tiila Kangas (viola); Ulla Lampela (cello))
rec. Länna Church, Sweden, October 2004, October 2005. DDD
BIS CD-1466 [78:50]
Experience Classicsonline

This is a successor to the Tempera Quartet's previous discs of Sibelius's earliest string quartets; BIS-CD-1376 (see review) and BIS-CD-1476 (1885-89 and 1888-89 respectively).

Where it is virtually impossible to pick out the ‘real’ mature Sibelius in some of those early works the individuality begins to show through in these. Amid a thrumming intensity redolent of Dvořák the big 1890 Adagio reaches forward to the avian chuckle of the later works. You can hear this at 5:34. Later a hymnal soulfulness emerges that touches on Finlandia (11:28). It was written in Loviisa.

From the same year comes the B Flat major quartet. It is about the same length as the famous Voces Intimae of 1922. It was started and finished in Loviisa but between those two events there was Sibelius’s visit to Berlin in 1889. The wondrously confident quartet radiates summery joy and again has the boisterous buoyancy of Dvořák even in the sauntering Andante sostenuto second movement. There is then a more obviously Scandinavian Presto which is full of wan yet vivacious gestures. The final anxious Allegro ends calmly. Making his farewells to Loviisa he set off for Vienna where ironically he was to discover the Kalevala and set off a new and overpowering spring of inspiration.

The Voces Intimae quartet was largely written in London where he was fêted by his British circl, Rosa Newmarch, Granville Bantock and Henry Wood. He was anxious and no doubt poor company but there was a reason. This was the time (1909) of his recuperation from the removal of the throat tumour in 1908. In Voces Intimae we catch the earliest intimations of the dark side of his symphonism - to be heard at its masterful apex in the Fourth Symphony of 1911. In fact Voces Intimae, which is in five movements, is far less ‘forbidding’ than the symphony with its romantic crepuscular half-lights. The bustle and breathless flitter of the second movement precedes the long and questioning yet consolatory quasi-Mahlerian Adagio di Molto. The deliberately paced and emphatic Allegretto then stands aside for the buzzing and skittering Allegro which reminds one all the time of the Lemminkainen Return. The famous Andante Festivo of 1922 was written for the 25th anniversary of a factory at Säynätsalo. It's a poised and lovely piece with a hymnal mien. Do I hear in this version the effect of the wheezing harmonium - an instrument included in his earliest family pieces.

It is typical of the Tempera that the unfamiliar and the familiar are here played for all they are worth. There is not a sniff of academic completism about these performances.

The readable and valuable notes are by that BIS stalwart of longstanding, Andrew Barnett; now one of the great Sibelius biographers.

Rob Barnett


Reviews of the BIS Sibelius Edition recordings

 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.