Ambiguity and Variety of Colours: Keys and Modes in Sibelius’s Chamber Music

Abstract

His synaesthetic talent in combining natural impressions, colours and sounds
allowed Sibelius to use a broad variety of keys in his first cyclic chamber music
works. In 1889, he began to use ambiguous modal sound planes and modes other
than major and minor, mostly to express a Finnish tone. Examples from the F major
violin sonata, the piano quintet and the quartet op. 4 anticipate the rich palette of
sound nuances in Sibelius's later works for orchestra. In the quartet Voces intimae
Sibelius used modes in variable ways. Beside the traditional modes and whole-tone
scale sections we also find an enormous variety of colours in the ingenious use of
major and minor keys.