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Rating: Execrable executive choices today reserve narrow and sporadic spaces for the enchanting music of Norway's greatest composer, Edvard Grieg (1843-1907). He was a champion of late romanticism shaped by the guidance of Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Liszt, yet absolutely unique in his yearning for contamination with popular musical elements, the use of which was intended to be functional in creating a national compositional style.
The very high caliber of his artistic production reaches its peak thanks to the lyrical delicacy of the Piano Concerto in A Minor, op. 16, and the freshness of the Orchestral Suites No. 1 op. 4 and No. 2 op. 55, derived from the incidental music for Henrik Ibsen's play “Peer Gynt.” Collected in this Deutsche Grammophone Serie Entrée CD together with the two intriguing Nordic Melodies for string orchestra op. 63, the aforementioned compositions envelop the listener in a dreamy, rarefied atmosphere of fragile and ethereal beauty, at times dotted with heart-wrenching melancholy, at other times with bursts of genuine and sparkling vitality.
The Piano Concerto in A Minor op. 16, composed in 1868, is the offspring of a twenty-five-year-old Grieg, buoyed by early artistic recognition, financially independent, and a newlywed following his marriage to singer Nina Hagerup. Conceived in Denmark during the summer holidays, in a charming villa in Sollerod, and orchestrated the following winter in Oslo (then Christiania), it conveys remarkably tangible idyllic serenity in which it saw the light, displaying fine and graceful melodic imagery. Formally, the concerto owes much to the Schumannian model, from which it borrows not only the key but also divisions and structure, particularly in the first movement; however, it distinguishes itself from the illustrious model through the inclusion of spectacular Liszt-like arabesques and, above all, through typically Scandinavian nuances.
The first movement, Allegro molto moderato, opens with the roll of timpani, interrupted by the piano in staccato and then in bright arpeggios, until the main theme appears first exposed by the woodwinds and then “passed” to the piano, which develops and chisels it with growing pathos and intensity. Contrasting with this is a slower, romantic, and voluptuous theme entrusted to the cellos, which culminates in a solemn episode marked by the entry of the trumpets. The piano does not seek to overpower but melts languidly into the orchestral fabric, elegant, crystalline, singing with gentleness and majesty at the same time; then it remains alone for the cadenza, and suddenly one is almost submerged by a cascade of notes as clear as spring water, an episode as engaging as it is technically challenging, leading to the concluding tutti.
The second movement, Adagio, could have been named Norway: it is the most passionate and poignant declaration of love a man can make to his land. The muted strings, in 3/8 time, describe a northern landscape of icy beauty, swept by a cold wind that swirls among snow-covered trees. Then… drops of purest dew and the first rays of sun brightening the morning... These are just a few notes, emerging from the piano like impressionistic brushstrokes, able to move one to tears: Debussy seduces with moonlight, Grieg caresses the soul with a Norwegian dawn.
The third movement, Allegro moderato molto e marcato, plays on rhythmic liveliness thanks to the structural combination of sonata and rondo. The piano introduces a brisk main theme in 2/4 on a typical Norwegian dance, immediately followed by a more elaborate second subject. Subsequently, the flute opens a very delicate parenthesis, during which the piano, with a very evocative effect, revisits the theme from the Adagio, developing it with melancholy to a climax induced by exaggerated chordal repetition. Then again a dance, this time in 3/4, with the tempo transforming into a Quasi presto, and a sweeping final cadenza, clearly related to the best Liszt, leading to a majestic Andante finale.
The performance is entrusted to the sensitivity and extraordinary technical means of Moscow-born Lilya Zilberstein, a protégé of Martha Argerich, who rose to fame thanks to a masterful interpretation of Rachmaninov's concertos No. 2 and 3 with the Berliners conducted by the “divine” Claudio Abbado (in the DG catalog, this recording is already considered a benchmark). The baton in the skilled hands of Estonian Neeme Jarvi, leading the impeccable Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra: conductor and ensemble are extensively seasoned in the “Nordic” repertoire (Sibelius, Nielsen, Berwald, Alven) and demonstrate great ease and confidence in approaching a score that, for obvious reasons, they feel particularly "close" from an aesthetic and spiritual point of view.
Jarvi and the GSO are also protagonists in the two Orchestral Suites derived from Grieg's music for Ibsen’s "Peer Gynt." The two Suites have quickly entered the ranks of the most appreciated symphonic repertoire, characterized by a singular and highly successful mixture of tones sometimes dramatic, sometimes fairytale-like, sometimes adventurous, sometimes romantic, enhanced by the recovery of Norwegian folk tradition motivic elements.
The Suite No. 1 op. 46 was born in 1880, and consists of 4 episodes, precisely oscillating between passion and sensuality (the well-known Morning Mood), sadness and melancholy (The Death Of Ase), exoticism and dance (Anitra's Dance), fairy tale and magic (In The Hall Of The Mountain King). The Suite No. 2 op. 55 of 1891, on the same framework, offers a new palette of orchestral colors, dark and dramatic (Peer Gynt’s Homecoming), sunny and carefree (Arabian Dance), and finally again delicately romantic (Ingrid's Lament and Solveig's Song). Grieg also derived piano versions of these Suites, for two and four hands.
The program is completed by the two Nordic Melodies (mysteriously omitted in the free.db track list, they are tracks 4 and 5 after the concerto and before the Suites) for string orchestra op. 63. The first, titled In The Folk Style, is a dark and introspective Andante, damnably fascinating, whose main theme is said to have been suggested to Grieg by Frederik Due, Norwegian ambassador in Paris. The second, Cow Call and Peasant Dance, after a peacefully serene Andantino, bursts into the rural vitality of the dance, with a drum-like Allegro molto vivace; in this case, Grieg recycles thematic material already exploited in two compositions contained in his collection of Norwegian folk songs and dances for piano. For the two Nordic Melodies, Grieg also realized piano versions for two and four hands, notable for brilliance and virtuosity.
Should anyone wish to delve more deeply into Edvard Grieg's work after listening, I recommend a beautiful DG collectors series box, in 6 CDs, with the complete orchestral music performed by Jarvi with the GSO, and in which the works reviewed here are obviously included, in the same performance.
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