"His music
carries the fragrance of his native
pine-woods into the concert room…"
J.A. Fuller Maitland
(editor of Grove) on Grieg
This superbly performed
release from Naxos could have been an
even better release. Sadly it proves
rather short measure because of a disappointing
programme design. At only 51 minutes
there is ample room to have accommodated
more scores that would have increased
the desirability of the issue. The reason
for this shortfall is that Naxos have
restricted themselves by selecting strictly
strings-only works. In the Two Lyric
Pieces, Op.68 only the second piece,
At the Cradle, is included.
The first piece Evening in the Mountains
is not a pure string work as it
features an oboe and horn, and consequently
does not feature. For the same reason
the strings-only work The
Death of Åse is the single
representative from the eight pieces
that comprise the Peer Gynt suites.
For some strange reason the Two Elegiac
Melodies, Op.34; the Last Spring
and The Wounded Heart are
separated from each other.
Grieg is one of the
most popular nationalist composers of
the nineteenth century. Music writer
Jan Swafford considers his scores to
be, "marked by graciousness
of effect, dewy lyricism and wistful
harmonies." Grieg was a master
of the miniature composition an aspect
of his genius so aptly shown here. One
of the finest scores on this issue is
the Holberg Suite where Grieg
translates a set of baroque dances into
a contemporary idiom. The other string
works are derived from his earlier songs
or piano pieces, of which Grieg wrote
a very large number. The Two Elegiac
Melodies: Last Spring and
The Wounded Heart are among his
most popular works.
Grieg wrote the 1884
score From Holberg’s Time:
Suite in the Olden Style, which
is more commonly known as the Holberg
Suite, Op.40 as a commission to
mark the bicentenary of the birth of
the acclaimed writer Ludwig Holberg.
Set in five movements and originally
for piano, it was arranged by the composer
for string orchestra. Here Grieg adopts
the form of the Baroque suite, with
its traditional French dance movements,
re-interpreted through the neoclassical
prism of his own time.
For his Two Elegiac
Melodies, Op. 34 he arranged two
songs from a set of twelve settings
of poems by Aasmund Olavson Vinje. The
songs: Last Spring and The
Wounded Heart, published in orchestral
form in 1881, have won great popularity
in this form.
The Two Melodies,
Op. 53: Norwegian and The
First Meeting were published in
1891. These are also arrangements of
earlier songs, the first of the pair
is the twelfth of the Vinje settings
My Goal, and the second
an arrangement of an 1870 setting of
a poem by Bjørnson, The First
Meeting.
Grieg wrote a very
large number of short piano pieces published
in a series of nine collections of Lyric
Pieces. The arrangement for strings
of Two Lyric Pieces, Op. 68,
comprises the fourth and fifth of a
set of six piano pieces, published in
1899. The second of these is a lullaby
At the Cradle. The first Lyric
piece Evening in the Mountains is
not included.
The Two Nordic Melodies,
Op. 63 are also known in versions for
piano. The first piece In Folk Style
uses a melody by Fredrik Duc, the
Norwegian-Swedish ambassador to France,
who had sent it to Grieg. The second
piece brings together Cow Call and
Peasant Dance arranged from a
set of 25 Norwegian folk-dances and
folk-songs first published in 1870.
Grieg’s incidental
music to Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt
follows the activities of its picaresque
hero in his various adventures. The
score was cast in some 23 movements
and written for a small theatre orchestra
and chorus in 1875. After it had become
evident that the play in its original
form would not be frequently revived
Grieg extracted eight movements in 1888
and 1891 and re-orchestrated them for
his two Peer Gynt Suites: No.
1, Op. 46 and No. 2, Op. 55. The only
piece from the set of eight included
on this release is The Death of Åse.
The string orchestra
on this release is the Oslo Camerata
which was established in 1997. It is
now ‘Ensemble in residence’ at the Barratt-Due
Institute of Music in Oslo. The Camerata
has had its own concert series at the
Old Masonic Lodge in Oslo. Under the
direction of their leader Stephan Barratt-Due
the Camerata prove a first-class string
ensemble and one of the finest that
I have heard for some time. If I had
heard this recording ‘blind’ and was
told that the ensemble were players
taken from the Berlin or Vienna Philharmonic,
I would have been fully convinced, such
is the quality of their performances.
The playing from the Norwegian ensemble
has a silvery tone, with a robust ‘edge’
to their timbre, that feels highly appropriate
in these scores. The five pieces that
make up the Holberg Suite are
performed with assurance and considerable
character. The strong melody of the
Praeludium with its restless
rhythm is given a spirited performance
and the poignant Air, in
the style of a Norwegian folk-song,
is played with real affection. I especially
enjoyed the interpretation of The
Death of Åse. The Oslo players
in this tender lament, convincingly
convey Grieg’s haunting melodies of
Åse’s death, to magical effect.
The booklet notes from
Keith Anderson are concise and reasonably
informative. The Naxos engineers have
provided a bright sound quality which
I found a touch too intense in the violins.
The cellos and double basses are recorded
closer than ideal.
From my collection
the finest alternative recordings that
contain virtually identical programmes
are: Neeme Järvi and the Gothenburg
Symphony Orchestra on Deutsche Grammophon
437 520-2. These brightly recorded performances
from 1999 offer beautiful playing and
considerable character. The 2005 recording
from the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra
under Ole Kristian Ruud on BIS-SACD-1491
has won many admirers for its full sound
and fresh and poetic performances. In
the opinion of many commentators the
finest version of the Holberg
is from Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic
Orchestra on Deutsche Grammophon 439
010-2, c/w the Peer Gynt Suites.
Michael Cookson
Oslo Camerata/Stephan Barratt-Due 
