This volume presents partly less known, but undoubtedly interesting and highly welcome additions to the chamber music repertoire for violinists and cellists in the reliable Urtext of the Complete Edition.
The violin was Sibelius’s instrument. He was active as a violinist mainly during his studies at the Helsinki Music Institute from 1885–1889 and for a short time thereafter. The present volume contains Jean Sibelius’s opus-numbered works for violin or cello and piano, 36 compositions in total. Most of the works of this volume were created at the beginning of the 20th century and remained unpublished until the early 1920s.
Sibelius composed far less music for the cello than for the violin. Malinconia (Op. 20), published in 1911, remained his only opus-numbered work exclusively for cello and piano. This volume also includes Two Pieces (Op. 77) and Four Pieces (Op. 78) as versions for violin with piano and for cello with piano.