Sibelius and Grieg String Quartets
New Helsinki String Quartet
Warner Apex 0927–40601–2 [72:57]
The New Helsinki String Quartet plays both these works as if they’d discovered them yesterday morning—which is precisely the right approach. Too many ensembles treat Sibelius’s Voces intimae like a fragile museum piece, all hushed reverence and Nordic gloom. Not here.
What strikes immediately is the sheer tonal clarity. The quartet’s intonation in the Sibelius first movement—that extraordinary compression of material, everything grown from a few cellular motifs—allows you to hear the architecture without the usual Romantic fog. When the second movement opens with those spectral, barely-there harmonics, the effect isn’t merely atmospheric but genuinely unsettling. The players understand that this music, for all its intimacy, has teeth.
The long "Adagio" di molto poses the central challenge. Thirteen minutes of predominantly slow music can turn turgid in less capable hands; here it flows with an almost vocal quality, the phrases breathing naturally rather than being parceled out in reverent spoonfuls. I’d have welcomed slightly more darkness in the lower voices—the cello particularly could dig deeper into those pizzicato passages—but the overall conception is sound. The fourth movement’s peasant vigor comes across with appropriate bite, though the "finale" occasionally pushes too hard where Sibelius wants compression rather than volume.
The Grieg is the surprise. Written in 1877–78, it’s far more adventurous than the lyric pieces would lead you to expect—closer in spirit to those wild Slåtter transcriptions than to “Morning Mood.” The New Helsinki players grasp this immediately. Their first movement has genuine drive, not just Scandinavian picturesqueness. When Grieg gets harmonically restless, they follow him into the undergrowth.
The “Romanze” second movement does indeed romance, but with a certain Nordic reserve—no Viennese schmaltz here. The "finale" wants more sheer joy, frankly. It’s marked "Presto" al Saltarello, and while the ensemble plays it with vigor, there’s something slightly dutiful about their approach. Compare the Budapest Quartet’s 1937 disc (on Biddulph), which despite its age conveys an almost reckless exuberance. Those players were making the case for repertoire still considered marginal; perhaps that very uncertainty gave them license to really let loose.
Still, this is strong advocacy. The recorded sound, captured in Finland’s Sigyn Hall, places you close enough to hear bow changes and finger shifts—those small imperfections that remind you this is chamber music, not some platonic ideal. Warner’s decision to reissue this on their budget Apex line (it originally appeared on Finlandia) makes commercial sense, though one hopes it doesn’t suggest the performances themselves are somehow second-tier. They’re not.
Both works benefit from being heard together. Sibelius knew Grieg’s quartet and clearly learned from it—that motivic concentration, that sense of organic growth from simple materials. The New Helsinki Quartet makes those connections audible without belaboring them. Their tuning alone would be reason enough to recommend this disc; that they also bring real interpretive intelligence to both scores clinches the matter. This is first-rate playing that deserves to reach beyond the budget bins.
