When Sibelius was still a student, in 1885, he wrote his first string quartet. Since then he wrote several works for it. However, it took until 1909 for him to write what was to be his last. Voces intimae, Latin for inner voices, was written in London in the same year as it was published. In a letter to his wife Sibelius wrote: It turned out as something wonderful. The kind of thing that brings a smile to your lips at the hour of death. I will say no more.
This is a rerelease of a very old monaural recording by the Budapest String Quartet. Although I’m usually not that impressed by older recordings, because of the recording quality, this one kind of surprised me. It is a lot better than I expected.