played by the Catterall Quartet :
Arthur Catterall (violin) Audrey Catterall (violin)
Lena Wood (viola) Johan Hock (cello)
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 Intimae' (1909), and 'Suite Mignonne' for two flutes and strings (1921).
' Voces Intimae ' 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 passages
Italian Serenade
The Italian Serenade is, with the exception of a very early quartet for strings, the only chamber work written by Hugo Wolf , who was pre-eminently a song writer. The Serenade has been transcribed for small orchestra. It was first performed as a quartet in. Vienna in 1904, the year following Wolf's death, and quickly became popular with chamber-music players.