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Edvard GRIEG (1843-1907) Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46 (1874/88) [15:34] Peer Gynt Suite No. 2, Op. 55 (1891-2) [17:15] Funeral March in Memory of Rikard Nordraak (1866/92)
[7:52] Old Norwegian Melody with Variations, Op. 51 (1891/1904)
[24:29] Bell Ringing, Op. 54 No. 6 (1904) [3:59]
Bergen
Philharmonic/Ole Kristian Ruud
rec. Grieg Hall, Bergen, Norway, February 2003, June
2004, November 2005 BIS BIS-SACD-1591 [70:50]
The
popular Peer Gynt suites are the featured works
here - even an audiophile enterprise like BIS has to consider
the market. This is probably also the first time since
the 1950s - when Odd Gruner-Hegge's performance with the
Oslo Philharmonic appeared in RCA's budget Camden line
- that a Norwegian conductor and orchestra have recorded
any of the Peer Gynt music together.
Ole
Kristian Ruud's readings have their moments. The Bergen
orchestra's fine principal woodwinds - the crisp flute,
the vibrant oboe, the tender, caressing clarinet - make
something special out of the over-familiar Morning Mood.
I enjoyed the warm accounts of Åse's Death and Ingrid's
Lament, both played as broad, flowing andantes
rather than funereal trudges. Best is Peer Gynt's Homecoming:
Ruud makes the turbulent storm music, bordering on movie-melodrama
stuff, taut and convincing, and the woodwinds again produce
a lovely transition into the orchestra-only version of Solvejg's
Song. But the conductor doesn't, or perhaps can't,
find anything special in the marches - In the Hall of
the Mountain King and the Arabian Dance - although
he shapes them well. Overall, these native sons and daughters
fail to capture the music's folklike flavor as did Fjeldstad
(Decca), a Norwegian, drawing clear, airy textures from
the LSO; and Berglund (EMI), a Finn (not even a Scandinavian!)
eliciting crisp, lilting rhythms from the Staatskapelle
Dresden.
No,
it's the rest of the program that makes this disc a must-have,
particularly the Old Norwegian Melody with Variations,
which, it's safe to say, has never sounded so good, either
musically or technically. The clear, wistful theme is longer
and more discursive than that of, say, the Enigma Variations,
and undergoes a comparable range of transformations. Some
episodes are buoyant and rhythmic, others searching and
expansive; we even hear a gracious waltz and a bit of a
military march along the way. With the composer adopting
what is, for him, an unusually adept and diverse instrumental
palette - not just in his blended timbres, but in the layered
textures - this piece becomes a marvelous showcase for
the orchestra.
Grieg
originally conceived the Funeral March in Memory of
Rikard Nordraak as a piano piece. In his wind-band
arrangement - there also exists a transcription for full
orchestra, by Johan Halvorsen - the full, dark sonority
at the start, blending chalumeau clarinets with
other low instruments, sets the right tone; in short order,
a single poised, elegiac trumpet brightens the texture,
if not the mood. In the central section, Grieg deploys
the reeds judiciously as a contrast while avoiding the
wheezy sound produced in writing where large clarinet sections
dominate the high range.
Finally,
the transcription of Bell Ringing, another piano
original, is effective. If the orchestra can't replicate
the chiaroscuro effects that a pianist can create
with adroit pedalling, it compensates with more natural
sustaining power. After several minutes of Grieg's pre-Impressionist "wash" of
textures, however, the concluding chordal cadence is startling.
I
cannot over-praise the playing of the Bergen Philharmonic.
I've already cited the excellent woodwinds. The strings
produce a soft-edged, velvety sound that is especially
fetching in the quieter pages and in moments of delicacy,
and they spin out lovely crescendos and decrescendos.
The brasses are secure and clean, yet unfailingly tactful.
The
engineering is mostly superb -- the trombone solos register
with particular depth, while the softer playing retains
an almost tangible presence. Here and there, as so frequently
happens nowadays, timpani rolls tend to obscure orchestral
detail -- but I only heard this in frontal stereo; perhaps
the problem disappears in surround playback.
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