Intimate Miniatures

Intimate Miniatures (in Swedish: Intima miniatyrer), Op. 20, is a four-movement suite for string quartet written in 1938 by the Swedish composer Lars-Erik Larsson. Originally, the pieces were part of a longer, six-movement "lyrical suite" ("lyrisk svit") called Late Autumn Leaves (Senhöstblad), which Larsson had written to accompany a recitation of poems about fall by the Swedish writer Ola Hansson.

Intimate Miniatures
Suite by Lars-Erik Larsson
The composer
Native name	Intima miniatyrer
Opus	20
Composed	1938 (1938)
Publisher	Gehrmans Musikförlag [sv] (1962)
Duration	Approx. 15 minutes[1]
Movements	4
Premiere
Date	20 November 1938 (1938-11-20)
Location	Stockholm, Sweden
Performers	Stockholm Quartet [sv]

The Stockholm Quartet [sv] premiered Late Autumn Leaves on 20 November 1938, with the Swedish actor Ivar Kåge as narrator; the performers were: Ernst Törnqvist [sv] and Folke Reinholdson (violins), John Hylbom (viola), and Carl Christiansen [sv] (cello).

The Prim Quartet (Primkvartetten) premiered Intimate Miniatures at the Fylkingen venue in Stockholm,^[2] Sweden, on 25 October 1940.^[3]

Structure

Ola Hansson

The movements of Late Autumn Leaves (Senhöstblad) are as follows; † = Not included in Intimate Miniatures^[4]

1. Allegro moderato
2. Allegretto^†
3. Andante sostenuto
4. Andantino—Allegro moderato—Andantino^†
5. Allegro
6. Adagio

The movements of Intimate Miniatures are as follows:

1. Adagio
2. Allegro moderato
3. Andante sostenuto
4. Allegro

Note that Larsson reordered the movements.

Recordings

The sortable table below lists commercially available recordings of Intimate Miniatures:

Ensemble	First violin	Second violin	Viola	Cello	Rec.[a]	Time	Recording venue	Label	Ref.
Helsingborg Quartet	Åsa Rudner	Bengt-Erik Norlén	Bengt Ersson	Göran Lindström	1986	13:00	Rosengård Church [sv]	Big Ben Phonogram	[b]
Stenhammar Quartet	Peter Olofsson	Per Öman	Tony Bauer	Mats Olofsson	2008	13:33[c]	Swedish Radio Studio 2	Daphne	[d]