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Edvard GRIEG (1843–1907) Orchestrated Piano Pieces Slåtter – Suite for Orchestra, Op. 72 (1903) (orch.Øistein
Sommerfeldt) [9:09]*
Norwegian Dances, Op. 35 (1881) (orch. Hans Sitt) [17:34]
Funeral March in Memory of Rikard Nordraak, EG107 (1866) (orch. Johan Halvorsen)
[7:48]
The Bridal Procession Passes By from Pictures from Folk Life, Op. 19, No. 2 (1871)
(orch: Johan Halvorsen) [3:38] Ballade, Op. 24 (1876) (orch. Geirr Tveitt)
[19:35]* Ringing Bells from Lyric Pieces, Op. 54, No. 6 (1891)
(orch. Grieg/Anton
Seidl) [4:27]
Royal Scottish National Orchestra/Bjarte
Engeset
rec. Henry Wood Hall, Glasgow, Scotland, 2-3 May 2005
* denotes world première recording NAXOS
8.557854 [62:11]
Like most Nordic composers during
the late 19th century also Edvard Grieg had most
of his education in accordance with the German school, a
fact that he regarded as a limitation. The German heaviness
was simply not compatible with the Norwegians’ love of “clarity
and brevity” and he mentioned “the Italian light, the richness
of Russian colour, and not least the clarity and lightness
of France.” When his publisher, Peters Edition, in 1890 suggested
that Hungarian-Czech composer Hans Sitt orchestrate what
is probably the most well-known music on this disc, the Norwegian Dances, Op. 35, Grieg wasn’t
too happy about this and preferred a Frenchman to do it – he
suggested Lalo – but the following year Peters published
Sitt’s orchestration anyway and it was soon established as
the standard version.
Almost 45 years ago I bought my first
full-length Grieg LP which, besides the ubiquitous Peer
Gynt suites, also contained the Norwegian Dances.
The Peer
Gynt music was even then a known quantity for me but
these dances were a revelation and I fell in love with them
at first hearing. The freshness of the melodies, the rhythmic
abandon and the colourful orchestration at once singled them
out. It was with some disappointment that I found out, while
reading the liner notes, that a totally unknown arranger
was responsible for the orchestral garb, while Grieg’s original
was composed for piano four hands. I soon found out, anyway,
that Sitt (1850–1922) made the orchestration during Grieg’s
lifetime and thus should have been authorized by the composer,
but this wasn’t the case. They are still very appealing and
in due time I replaced my mono LP with Neeme Järvi’s version
with the Gothenburg Symphony, which ever since has been the
benchmark recording. Now Bjarte Engeset presents them with
Järvi’s other long term orchestra, the RSNO. Whether this
connection is of any importance I don’t know but Engeset
is a great conductor in his own right – demonstrated not
least in a long series of recordings for Naxos. His readings
are on the same exalted level with even more rhythmic springiness.
He also makes the most of the contrasts in the music, especially
Grieg’s way of composing a middle section with the theme
at half speed, which he does in both No. 1 and No. 3.
This technique recurs in the second
of the three Slåtter (folk-fiddle
dance melodies) that constitute the orchestral suite, arranged
by Øistein Sommerfeldt (1919–1994). This is late Grieg. Sommerfeldt
worked on these orchestrations for many years while studying
with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, so there is definitely more
than a French touch here, which I am sure Grieg would have
liked. Extremely self-critical Sommerfeldt revised his orchestrations
over and over again and finally decided to scrap the whole
project of three suites. In 1979 he came up with a short
suite and that is the one we hear on this disc in a world
première recording. The folk music elements are very obvious
and he also uses tambourine to intensify the rhythmic elements.
Rickard Nordraak (1842–1866) was a
composer and friend of Grieg’s, who had brave plans to create
national art music based on folk elements. It was a great
loss when his life was cut short at the age of 24. Today
he is best known as composer of the melody to the Norwegian
National Anthem, Ja,
vi elsker dette landet¸ which was first performed on
17 May 1864. Grieg “took refuge in music” when he learnt
of the demise of his friend and wrote the Funeral March to his memory. Johan Halvorsen
wrote the version for symphony orchestra aboard a ship on
his way to Grieg’s funeral in Bergen in 1907 and the music
was played by a pick-up orchestra at the funeral ceremony.
It is built on heavy contrasts: deep sorrow and violent outbreaks
of what might be regarded as anger at the loss of a dear
friend. The other Halvorsen arrangement is the illustrative The Bridal Procession Passes By. This
has always been a popular piece and Grieg recorded it himself
twice. It has been orchestrated several times and was included
in Peer Gynt at a production in Copenhagen, but Halvorsen’s arrangement
was not published until the year after Grieg’s death. It
is bright and colourful as are most of Halvorsen’s own compositions.
The most remarkable music on this
disc is perhaps Geirr Tveitt’s orchestration of the G minor Ballade. Tveitt was also French-oriented
and here he excels in creating a garment that challenges
even a Ravel in inventiveness, using harp and celesta to
provide softly glittering light. It could be argued that
he sometimes is too generous with paint and I believe that
Grieg, considering his wish for clarity and transparency,
would have complained. Maybe, as Bjarte Engeset says in his
highly personal and illuminative liner notes, if Grieg had
lived another fifty years and developed further in a modernistic
direction, he might have written something like this. As
it is Tveitt has created a rich and virtuosic score on a
composition that he had often played as a pianist but felt
it was really an orchestral work. Tragically and ironically
Tveitt believed this score to have been lost in the devastating
fire at his home in 1970, when so much of his total oeuvre
was destroyed, but Øistein Sommerfeldt found it in the archive
of the Norwegian Society of Composers and gave it to the
National Library of Norway. Some years later Tveitt’s widow
mentioned to Øyvind Nordheim at the Library how sad it was
that the manuscript was lost, Nordheim remembered the manuscript
and closer study told him that this was Tveitt’s all right.
That was in 1989 and two years later it was premièred by
the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, but this is the first
ever recording.
The last piece, Klokkeklang (Ringing Bells) is the
only music here that Grieg himself had a finger in. The piano
piece, included in the fifth book
of Lyric Pieces (1891) was a study in sonorities
and harmonies and, as Liv Glaser pointed out in her notes
to the collection of Lyric
Pieces that I reviewed
recently, it actually heralds Debussy’s La
cathédrale engloutie, which didn’t appear until almost
twenty years later. This is Grieg at his boldest and most
modernistic and the shimmering, almost mystical sounds are
deeply fascinating. The German conductor had orchestrated
some of the pieces from this book in 1895 and Grieg used
these orchestrations for his Lyric
Suite in 1905. He didn’t include Klokkeklang in
the suite but he made far-reaching revisions of Seidl’s score
so with some justification one could say that this is as
close to ‘real’ Grieg as we can come on this disc. It has
been recorded before, maybe more than once, but I only know
a Unicorn recording with the LSO and Norwegian conductor
Per Dreier.
One expects great things from the
RSNO and with the inspirational Bjarte Engeset at the helm
in repertoire he loves they produce playing of the highest
order. Even though this is not “The Essential Edvard Grieg” he
has today – and especially during this commemorative year – a
position in the musical world where even the production outside
the central canon is of interest. Grieg completists should
jump on the opportunity to amend their collections and more
generalist listeners should at least have the Norwegian
Dances in a reading that in this case is exceptionally
stimulating.
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