THE GRILLER STRING
QUARTET:
Sydney Griller (violin); Jack O'Brien (violin) ; Philip Burton (viola);
Colin Hampton (violoncello)
MARIA BASILIDES (contralto)
Haydn's string quartets represent the most important land-mark in the history of chamber music. Not only did Haydn develop sonata form into a pattern that was to serve as a model even up to the present day, but he laid the foundations of a technique that has never been superseded. In the three quartets forming Op. 74 we have the mature Haydn. No. 1 in C is a particularly beautiful work. It was a favourite of the Joachim Quartet.
It is a curious fact that although Sibelius was intensely interested in chamber music during his early days, he has written only three chamber works : a string quartet in B flat, which is still in MS. (1890), the string Quartet, Voces Intimee (1909), and Suite Mignonne for two flutes and strings (1921).
Voces Intimœ was partly written in 1908 while Sibelius was staying in London. It is a fine and characteristic work, the most striking feature of which, says Cecil Gray in his monograph on the composer, ' is the extreme prevalence of conjunct motion—almost the entire thematic material of all five movements is built up from fragments of scale passage