Voces intimae, the quartet Sibelius composed in Paris and London during 1908-09, is not his only essay in the medium. He was sufficiently happy with the early B flat Quartet of 1890 to assign it an opus number, though he discouraged its performance. He wrote some two dozen or more chamber works before he embarked on the Kullervo Symphony in the early 1890s, for in the absence of a flourishing orchestral tradition (the Helsinki orchestra was not put on a permanent footing until 1882) music that could be performed in the home was the only means Sibelius had of stretching his creative powers. He continued to write music for domestic use but into none of it did he pour ideas of significance or real inspiration. It is as if the medium reminded him of the provincialism of his early years, and plans for two further quartets at about the time of the Fourth Symphony came to nothing.
Here for the first time on record are two early quartets, the A minor written in 1889, his last year as a student in Helsinki, and the B flat composed the following year. Although there is an earlier essay in E flat (1885), it is evident from the title-page of the Op. 4, which he calls Quartet No. 2, that he thought of the A minor as his first. In my ''Master Musicians'' monograph (Dent), I cited the authority of John Rosas and Erik Tawaststjerna for saying that only the first violin part of the A minor Quartet survived but a complete set of parts has recently come to light, and the work is well worth having. In some ways I prefer the A minor to its successor. There are many prophetic touches as well as plenty of what Professor Tawaststjerna calls ''the fragile Nordic melancholy linked stylistically to Grieg''. There is also an unexpected harmonic audacity in the Scherzo, where an A major triad cuts across some writing in C minor texture, and earlier, in the slow movement, there is a mysterious and imaginative episode that almost reminded me of Dvorak. (It was this quartet that the composer took for comments to Busoni, who immediately went to the piano— ''And how he played it!'' Sibelius wrote.)
I have heard the Op. 4 Quartet before on a broadcast tape, but found myself much more persuaded of its interest and value this time round. No doubt the more expert playing of these artists helped. Sibelius began it in the summer of 1889 before he left for his studies in Berlin, but put it on one side, completing it the following autumn, the year before he embarked on Kullervo. Tawaststjerna points to the influence of both Beethoven and Schumann in the first movement—and that of Tchaikovsky, which had, of course, surfaced in earlier student chamber works, including the A minor Suite. The slow movement is a set of variations on a lyrical Finnish folk-tune that could be spiritually a distant antecedent of Rakastava. (In its very first choral form, Rakastava was composed only three years later.) The Scherzo proper (in D major) is wonderfully vital and inventive, and the Trio comes close to the Schubert of the A minor Quartet, albeit a tone lower. These will never—and should never—be repertory works while so many masterpieces (Dvorak, Op. 34, to take but one example) are so seldom heard but they are of absorbing interest to the student of Sibelius and give us a valuable glimpse into the formation of his personality. It is interesting to see that highly developed feeling for form we recognize from the mature Sibelius is already evident in these quartets. New ideas emerge at just the right moment (with the possible in the first movement of the A minor) and, given the fact that these are student works, the music is excellently paced.
The playing of the Sibelius Academy Quartet is sympathetic and intelligent, very good rather than impeccable; neither in terms of tonal blend or spot-on intonation are they the equal of the best international ensembles. Good though he is, the leader is not quite so imaginative as the distinguished cellist though the rather close balance of the recording is not a help. It does not do full justice to their dynamic range or tone colour, and despite the reverberant ambience, the sound does not really expand. Don't, however, be put off by this reservation; if the recording is not ideal, it is perfectly acceptable, and there is no doubt as to the commitment or expertise of the performances. An issue of great interest to all Sibelians.'