SIBELIUS: Symphony No. 5 in E-flat Major, Op. 82; String Quartet in D Minor, Op. 56 “Voces Intimae” – Danish State Radio Symphony Orchestra/Eric Tuxen/Griller String Quartet
Dutton CDBP 9801, 57:21 [Distr. by Harmonia mundi] ****:
Conductor Eric Tuxen (1902-1957) though born German, made a career in Denmark, especially associating himself with the music of Sibelius and Nielsen, whose Fifth Symphony Tuxen premiered in Edinburgh with great success. His Sibelius Fifth (1915) from June 1952 communicates the cold mysteries of the North country by proceeding as a moody arch in the first movement, a graduated stretto in thirds of enormous muscular power that embraces figures in gritty motion and a fugal dexterity of epic design. Sibelius seems to fuse sonata-form and scherzo affect into the same opening movement, utilizing the horn motif that sets the tone for the entire first half of the work. Tuxen favors a lithe literalist reading, cool and vibrant, in the manner of a Northern Sir Adrian Boult. The theme and variations slow movement–beginning pizzicato–allows Tuxen to display his string and woodwind choirs to full advantage while the bass work eventually mounts to significance, becoming the very basis of the last movement. The last movement–Allegro molto–shimmers perpetually in constant motion, the melody having evolved from the bass of the Andante movement. Both majestic and intimate, the Tuxen reading brings a fiery glow to the figures, an aurora borealis of its own. Sober, intelligent, passionate, these remain qualities to recommend this idiomatic performance to any Sibelius devotee.
The Griller Quartet recorded Sibelius grand D Minor Quartet 28 November 1950. The scale of the 1909 work suggests Beethoven’s influence on the Finnish master, especially the former’s economical tendency to conserve all opening materials in some form as the work progresses. Adopting a slow tempo for the first movement–Andante. Allegro molto moderato–the Grillers linger over those modal “inner voices” taken as the quartet’s rubric. Sibelius demonstrates a capacity for angular melodic lines, interior dissonances, and skewed textures that places him on a par with Bartok as a shaper of the quartet medium. The chordal progressions at the end of the movement testify to homage to late Beethoven, likely Op. 127. The busy Scherzo (Vivace) skitters and stops, a neurotic affair that assumes slashing gestures, quite vivid and insistent in the Griller rendition. The centerpiece of the quartet–Adagio di molto–casts a plaintive first violin against the organ chorales of the lower strings. The model of the Beethoven Ninth slow movement makes its presence felt. The Allegretto is marked “ma pesante,” but the Griller instill a heavy or ominous tread in the interwoven lines–reminiscent of Haydn’s “Fifths Quartet–of this disturbed movement. Chromatic and agitated, the last movement Allegro chugs and meanders along, often in a rarified universe in which the four instruments rather collide than cooperate. At two minutes, Sibelius initiates his ’perpetual motion’ affect we know from Symphonies Two and Five, the energies having become manic and boldly assertive.
–Gary Lemco
