Songs without Voices

I recovered an old enthusiasm for writing songs, and it occurred to me to try to apply this to the instrumental sphere , Oliver Knussen said of 1992’s Songs without Voices for eight instruments. Knussen combines flute, cor anglais, clarinet, horn, violin, viola, cellos and piano in four pieces lasting a total of 11 minutes. The first three - Fantastico (Winter’s Foil); Maestoso (Prairie Sunset); Leggiero (First Dandelion) - set words by Walt Whitman to instrumental lines. The final movement - Elegiac Arabesques - is in memory of Andrzej Panufnik, led by cor anglais and clarinet.

…four small, magically lyrical ruminations in each of which a single instrumental voice…sings out above its economically picturesque accompaniment.

Financial Times (Max Loppert), 16 June 1992