******
- Verified Buyer
This 1970s recording of the Sibelius and Delius String Quartets by the British Fitzwilliam Quartet is reissued here by EMI along with a 1970 performance of the Delius Cello Sonata. The CD has some good moments but has quite a few flaws.Sibelius Voces intimae quartet: This is one of the very few chamber works from Sibelius' mature period. It is a five-movement work that I think starts somewhat weakly but features an unusual and very effective finale. I don't think this is a first-tier work by the Finnish artist, but it has some very attractive moments. I compared the Fitzwilliams interpretation to the Guaraneri Quartet's recording for Philips and think the Guarneri is comprehensively superior. The Guarneri plays with musicality and have a real feeling for the Sibelius style, for example, nicely playing the passage in the opening Allegro with the tremolo upper strings and a steady sequential passage in the lower instruments. The Fitzwilliams take the quartet at a lugubrious tempo - their performance is a whole 5 minutes longer than the Guarneri's - and are less effective in rendering the subtleties of the arrangement. The Guarneri recording is engineered at a whole other level from the Fitzwilliams, to boot.Two chamber works from Frederic Delius are featured, both from 1916. Delius is better known as an author of orchestral and choral works, with his chamber music relatively neglected and often criticized. That criticism is warranted based on the Quartet and the Cello Sonata. I followed the score of the Quartet during one listening of the Fitzwilliams' performance and was surprised with the simplicity of the textures, which didn't quite seem to be at a fully-developed technical level. There is an absence of textural variety and rhythmic inventivity. One exception is a beautiful passage in the opening "With aninmation" with a strong pizzicato cello accompaniment (about 7 minutes into the recording, right before rehearsal number 21 if that helps) which the Fitzwilliams play wonderfully. But that passage stands apart in what can be a sometimes bland work. The Cello Sonata is a shorter two-movement work that I'd again describe as underwritten and rhythmically oversimple. The performance here, by George Isaac and Martin Jones, is undistinguished. As an alternative, I recommend Tasmin Little & Piers Lane's terrific recording of the Delius violin sonatas (on Conifer). The 1st violin sonata is the finest Delius work of any type I have heard and the performance is top notch.I'm generally of the opinion that performance standards by string quartets have experienced a tremendous leap in the last two decades or so. The Fitzwilliams Quartet conform to this view: they play in tune but also somewhat metronomically - the contrast with the Guarneri's sensitivity in phrasing is obvious - and they aren't able to produce big dynamic effects - that is, they play in an undifferentiated mezzo forte for too much of the time. I'd say the group has been superseded as a result.Finally, the sonic engineering of this disc is mediocre. It's a bit bright and I think dynamically compressed. 3 stars.
