An inspired duo creates one of the most enjoyable cello discs in years.
With Steven Isserlis and Stephen Hough an inspired duo, natural recording artists both, this is one of the most enjoyable new cello discs I have heard in years. I should be sorry if the sentimental title, “Forgotten Romance”, taken from the shortest and least ambitious piece in the collection, deterred any serious listener from investigating it. The logic of the grouping is that the five cello pieces of Liszt, all of them brief and all of them adapted from earlier works, are used to frame the high romantic cello sonatas, by Grieg and Rubinstein, that are in danger of neglect. As Isserlis suggests in his engagingly argued note, “The unabashed emotionalism, the thrilling climaxes and memorable melodies of all such works are all too easily sneered at nowadays, and concert programmes are thus deprived of a host of 19th-century treasures.”
His advocacy is well founded, for in these exhilarating performances he and Hough challenge each other in spontaneously imaginative interplay to bring out all the qualities he mentions. The point is that with performances like these, as sharply disciplined as they are passionate, all the emotion is very well founded, with sentimentality firmly kept at bay. Romance oubliee, adapted from an early song, was originally written for viola, with an added arpeggio passage at the end reflecting Berlioz’s Harold in Italy, which Liszt had arranged for viola and piano. As Paul Coletti and Leslie Howard demonstrate on their Hyperion recording (11/93), Romance oubliee is rather better suited to that instrument, but makes a pleasant ‘song without words’ here to introduce the magnificent Grieg Sonata. Written when Grieg was considering composing a second piano concerto, its material and manner very much reflect the A minor Concerto, with Grieg at his most richly distinctive. Compared with, say, Truls Mork and Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Isserlis and Hough are lighter and more imaginative, never running the risk of sounding sentimental, choosing speeds that flow easily and naturally. Paradoxically that makes the result more moving than any underlining of expression.
One could say the same about all these performances. The two Elegies – with Isserlis most persuasive in the improvisation-like passages – lead to the Rubinstein First Sonata. It has the lyrical directness and honest four-square construction which make the Mendelssohn cello sonatas so attractive. After a strongly characterized first movement Isserlis and Hough adopt a genuine flowing Allegretto for the siciliano rhythms of the central movement, made charmingly fresh, and the exuberant finale finds Hough at his most brilliant in the shimmering piano writing. The disc is rounded off by two Liszt pieces slightly more substantial than the others – Die Zelle in Nonnenwerth (“The Cell in Nonnenwerth”) – a late adaptation of an early song, spare in texture, and Liszt’s tribute to Wagner after his death, La lugubre gondola, one of many different adaptations. It would be a pity if such inspired playing failed to be appreciated, when, as Hough says, all this music so richly deserves to be better known.
The WDR Sinfonie Orchester and the Norwegian conductor Eivind Aadland continue their survey of Edvard Grieg's orchestral works with this selection from the composer's orchestral repertoire which he liked to conduct across Europe.
Grieg: Complete Symphonic Works, Vol. 3
$21.99
SACD
Audite Musikproduktion
Sep 24, 2013
AUD92669
Grieg: Complete Symphonic Works, Vol. 2
Audite Musikproduktion
Available as
SACD
$21.99
Aug 30, 2011
Classical Music
Grieg: Complete Symphonic Works, Vol. 2
$21.99
SACD
Audite Musikproduktion
Aug 30, 2011
AUD92579
Grieg, E.: Piano Music, Vol. 2
Centaur Records
Available as
CD
$18.99
Sep 01, 2001
Classical Music
Grieg, E.: Piano Music, Vol. 2
$18.99
CD
Centaur Records
Sep 01, 2001
CRC2712
Edvard Grieg & Henrik Ibsen: Peer Gynt
Aeon
Available as
CD
$11.99
Apr 01, 2009
The English translation excellently acted gives this fiery Peer new appeal.
Based on concerts the Suisse Romande Orchestra gave in Geneva and Lausanne, Guillaume Tourniaire's performance of the Benestad/Andersen critical edition of the score (essentially the 26 numbers given at the play's 1876 premiere) first appeared in 2005 (A/05). In my Gramophone Collection piece on Peer Gynt in November of that year I would have hailed it unreservedly as the best complete version of Grieg's theatre music had the dialogue and melodramas not been spoken in French. Now those spoken passages have been rendered into English, in a translation by Stephen Taylor which resonates without either period whimsy or banal updating.
The linking narrations and filleting of the play by Main Perroux have been made with sharp knowledge of the Ibsen drama and of what works in concert and on disc. The national characteristics of the actors intriguingly alter the feel of the piece. While Lambert Wilson and his French colleagues are more distanced, Brechtian and mysterious, the British trio immediately embrace a warmer, more comic naturalism. Alex Jennings's voice grows from rough Ulster into an assumed English RP as Peer travels the world; Derek Jacobi is a cunning mix of spooky and funny as the Boyg, here called the Great Obstacle, and no less effective in 10 other parts; Haydn Gwynne hops with enjoyable confidence across the age and sanity barriers from Peer's mother to his various girl friends.
Tourniaire has as much of an eye on the drama as the exceptional discs of excerpts under Beecham (EMI) and Masur (Philips). He has intuited and delivered a true Grieg style from his orchestra, alert, light, swift but not afraid to punch home the ironies (of the Trolls' various numbers) and the intentionally noisy stage effect climaxes (like the Act 5 shipwreck music). The two big melodramas ("Peer and the Obstacle" and "Night Scene") — perhaps the most compelling reasons for getting to know the complete score — find Grieg at his most progressive and inventive and Tourniaire paces them beautifully. Even his rits and rails in the tricky little vocal numbers of Peer's African sojourn in Act 4 come off to a tee.
With English-speaking listeners now as well catered for as French ones, Aeon should seriously consider a Norwegian version, even retaining Perroux's taut narrative material. The Ole Kristian Ruud/Bergen BIS Norwegian set (A105) is authentically self-recommending but it lacks the special fire and imagination of Tourniaire's.
-- Mike Ashman, Gramophone [3/2007]
Edvard Grieg & Henrik Ibsen: Peer Gynt
$11.99
CD
Aeon
Apr 01, 2009
AECD0642
Grieg: Orchestral Works Vol 1 [sacd]
BIS
Available as
SACD
$21.99
Feb 01, 2003
The programme on this first disc in the cycle includes both old favourites - the piano concerto - and less known works. (The Symphony was actually left unperformed for more than 100 years, from 1867 to 1980). Recorded with the new DSD (Direct Stream Digital) technology, these interpretations are available on SACD and in Surround Sound - a first for this the most recorded (?) of piano concertos. The presence of the piano and the weight of the orchestra as well as the sense of spaciousness are truly extraordinary. One gains entirely new insights into just how the piano soloist - Noriko Ogawa - sculpts those famous melodies; and just how dazzlingly spectacular her finger work is in the rapid runs!
Grieg: Orchestral Works Vol 1 [sacd]
$21.99
SACD
BIS
Feb 01, 2003
BIS-SACD-1191
Chopin, Schumann & Grieg / Segev, Pohjonen
Avie Records
Available as
CD
$19.99
$14.99
Jul 20, 2018
Cellist Inbal Segev’s debut release for Avie features the lush and romantic sonatas by Chopin and Grieg, and the Fantasiestucke by Robert Schumann. She is joined by Finnish pianist Juho Pohjonen, a fitting partner for the pianistic Chopin and the virtuosic Grieg. In Schumann’s own transcription of his “Fantasy Pieces,” originally for clarinet, the lyrical quality shines through on Inbal’s 1673 Ruggieri cello. Inbal Segev reaches thousands of people across continents through her influential YouTube video masterclass series Musings with Inbal, teaching core repertoire, cello technique and new works. Her many honors include top prizes at the Pablo Casals, Paulo and Washington International Competitions. She began playing cello in Israel at five and at sixteen was invited by Isaac Stern to continue her studies in the US. She holds degrees from The Juilliard School and Yale University. “first class… richly inspired… very moving indeed…” (Gramophone) “Her playing is characterized by a strong and warm tone…delivered with impressive fluency and style.” (The Strad) “This young artist is, beyond doubt, a star in the making- her tone golden and unstrained in the high positions, her phrasing that of a born musician.” (Musical Opinion)
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REVIEW:
In the late 2010s, cellist Inbal Segev teamed with the young pianist Juho Pohjonen in recitals, and the pair has a good, confident rapport.
In the first movement of Chopin's Cello Sonata in G minor, Op. 65, Segev strikes a nice balance between the bel canto melody and the dense construction.
The virtuosic Grieg sonata is expertly done, and it is likely that this release will satisfy her many fans.
– All Music Guide (James Manheim)
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Chopin, Schumann & Grieg / Segev, Pohjonen
$19.99
$14.99
CD
Avie Records
Jul 20, 2018
AV2389
Grieg: Historic Chamber Music Recordings / Budapest Quartet
RCA
Available as
CD
$17.99
Jul 31, 2007
GRIEG: HISTORIC CHAMBER MUSIC
Grieg: Historic Chamber Music Recordings / Budapest Quartet
$17.99
CD
RCA
Jul 31, 2007
RCA61826
Percy Grainger In Performance - Grieg, Grainger, Schumann
Music and Arts Programs of America
Available as
CD
$19.99
Jun 13, 2013
Whether performing Grieg, Grainger, or Schumann, Grainger himself seizes on the music's rifts: while he can produce a fetching cantabile, he tends to disturb the surface by jabbing at the accompaniments, shifting mood without preparation, sharpening the rhythmic profile (a special boon in the Schumann Symphonic Etudes), and grabbing on to small details. The piano part of the orchestral In a Nutshell is not really a solo opportunity—but Grainger uses it as a platform to rail against the orchestra, snapping out his accents in a way that turns the music violent... Echt Grainger is certainly what we get on the Music & Arts CD... However, I can't help regretting Music & Arts's choices when they put together this CD. I have no complaints about the performances themselves. Grainger's antisentimental roughening of the Grieg (modeled, in part, on his mentor Grieg's own readings) is the most vital I know; and despite the sprinkle (and occasional downpour) of wrong notes, this particular performance (once available on an International Piano Archives LP) is arguably the best representation (he never made a studio account) that has survived. But why couple it with the commercial studio recordings of the Schumann works, which have long been widely available from both Pearl and Biddulph?
Still, Maggi Payne's transfers are good, too...and former Fanfare colleague Kevin Bazzana's elaborate essay serves as a model for the kind of annotation that [others] should be providing...
-- Peter J. Rabinowitz, FANFARE [3/1998]
Percy Grainger In Performance - Grieg, Grainger, Schumann
$19.99
CD
Music and Arts Programs of America
Jun 13, 2013
MUA 1002
Saint-Saens, Grieg & Liszt: Piano Works / Freire
Audite Musikproduktion
Available as
CD
$16.99
Sep 01, 2017
This new release features Saint-Saëns' Second Piano Concerto with Nelson Freire under the baton of AdAm Fischer. Not many pianists are able to accomplish the stylistic and technical challenges of this concerto, demanding complete precision in fingering and leaps, as well as perfect command of the "jeu perlé": Nelson Freire masters this work with great aplomb, quiet assurance and, at times, a twinkle in his eye. He is completely committed and happy to take risks, triggering veritable "Sturm und Drang", and always congenially accompanied by AdAm Fischer. Twenty years previously, the Brazilian pianist (then aged 22) had made his German radio debut with a recital programme which he recorded at the RIAS's Lankwitz studio in Berlin. In Grieg's Lyric Pieces and the Hungarian Rhapsodies Nos 5 and 10 by Liszt, as well as his Polonaise in E major, Freire not only demonstrated his stupendous manual prowess, but also what was already at that stage his extraordinary touch and stylistic confidence. These early solo recordings anticipate his brilliant later style, completing the picture of the exceptional pianist. All recordings on this album are released for the first time.
Saint-Saens, Grieg & Liszt: Piano Works / Freire
$16.99
CD
Audite Musikproduktion
Sep 01, 2017
AUD95742
Dvorak, Grieg & Brahms: Music for Piano Four Hands / Chevallier, Immerseel
Alpha
Available as
CD
$20.99
$15.99
May 19, 2017
The repertory for piano four hands is very large and was very popular, especially in the period between 1780 and 1950, with both professional pianists and amateur players in the home. Jos van Immerseel and Claire Chevallier chose for this recording a selection of ‘dances’ by three masters of the genre, who show a certain affinity with one another and composed the works in question within a short period of time (1878-81). Brahms wrote twenty-one dances, from which the artists have chosen the less well-known books, nos. 11 to 21. He wrote these works while living in Vienna where he got to know Hungarian folk music through the street musicians, which inspired these works. Grieg loved his country, its atmosphere and culture, and this drove his composition. He wrote: “To turn Norwegian nature, Norwegian folk life and Norwegian poetry into music. This goal appeals to me, and I feel strongly that through it I will achieve something.” Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances for piano four hands are largely inspired by the aforementioned dances by Brahms. The three composers were also pianists and knew the keyboard instruments of their time. The benchmark for them was the German style of piano construction. They knew all the possibilities but also the limitations of their instruments. For this recording, the duo chose a Bechstein grand piano of 1870, believing that a masterly restoration of a masterly instrument of the composers’ time offers a better chance of listening to the music as the composers conceived and heard it.
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Dvorak, Grieg & Brahms: Music for Piano Four Hands / Chevallier, Immerseel
$20.99
$15.99
CD
Alpha
May 19, 2017
ALPHA282
Rubinstein Collection Vol 22 -brahms, Grieg: Piano Concertos
Grieg, Strauss & Fauré: 1883 - Music for Cello & Piano / Croisé, Shevchenko
Avie Records
Available as
CD
$19.99
$9.99
Nov 10, 2023
1883 was a fruitful year for cello composition as Christoph Croisé’s new recording reveals. That year marked Edvard Grieg’s return to composition after a period of conducting the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, with the Sonata in A minor, his only work for cello and piano. Also that year, Richard Strauss was writing for the same combination at the age of just 19, producing his Sonata in F. Gabriel Fauré embarked on a cello sonata in 1880; only the slow movement transpired and was published and premiered as the stand-alone piece Élégie in 1883. Christoph’s regular performing partner, Oxana Shevchenko, joins him in this beautifully balanced recording of works for cello and piano.
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Grieg, Strauss & Fauré: 1883 - Music for Cello & Piano / Croisé, Shevchenko
The Engegård Quartet, founded in 2006, releases this album as their first on BIS. The group has become one of the most highly regarded ensembles in Norway, and has also gained international acclaim. This release includes three fantastic string quartets: Edvard Grieg’s String Quartet in G minor, Op. 27, Jean Sibelius’ String Quartet in D minor, ‘Voices intimae’, Op. 56, and Olav Anton Thommessen’s Felix Remix (String Quartet No. 4; 2014). The Thommesssen piece included on this disc was premiered by Engegard Quartet in 2014. The work is inspired by Felix Mendelssohn’s String Quartet, Op. 44 No. 2.
Grieg: Choir Music / Pedersen, Norwegian Soloists Choir
BIS
Available as
SACD
$21.99
$15.99
Aug 01, 2007
This is an, err… enchanting disc of Grieg’s choral music – both original and arranged for choir. The opening, resonant, full bodied choral arrangement of the popular “At Rondane”, op.33, No.2 (originally for voice and piano) is plain gorgeous in its moody way. Two religious songs were prepared for mixed choir by Grieg himself of which “Withered, Fallen – At the Bier of a Young Wife” sounds a bit predictable, but touching in its cathedral-like piety. In this song, as in “Ave, Maris Stella” or indeed most of the other works on this glorious sounding (multi-channel/stereo) hybrid SACD, the non-Norwegian ear will always pick up a certain preciousness, that silver-voiced, Christmas-choir touch with scents and touches of mulled wine, snow boots, and blond locks under a woolen hat.
“Margaret’s Cradle Song” op.15, No.1, a short gem some 90 seconds long, was written in appreciation of the birth of his daughter Alexandra in 1868. It is set to the Ibsen poem of the same name and hauntingly beautiful. Alexandra, however, never got to appreciate her song; she died shortly after it was written. (Which is tragic and yet, given that it was set to something by Ibsen, also so terribly appropriate.)
Grete Pedersen, who conducts the Norwegian Soloists’ Choir also sets the first of the Lyric Pieces op.71 “Det var engang” for mixed choir. It might be the only miscalculation in that the result sounds nice and pleasant but also — in its dum-de-dum new-agey way — cheap.
Norway was already an independent nation when Grieg composed the 1907 Four Psalms op.74, his last work. It’s a somber end to his musical output – with “Jesus Christ is Risen” being an especially austere, if moving, setting of this Hans Adolf Brorson text. The four psalm settings are based on a collection of Norwegian “newer and older mountain tunes” that Grieg wanted to help preserve with his musical adoption. He has achieved that all over again by having them included in this very fine reminder that Grieg is so much more than the Grieg of a certain mountain king’s hall, or of lyric pieces, or a piano concerto.
-- Jens F. Laurson, WETA 90.9
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Grieg: Choir Music / Pedersen, Norwegian Soloists Choir
It’s not often that one hears recorded organ transcriptions of major works originally composed for symphony orchestra. But that’s what we get here, in a transcendental program of orchestral favorites played to breathtaking perfection by Thomas Murray, an internationally renowned organist and Yale professor.
Murray is the latest in a long line of top-ranked players who have made outstanding solo recordings in keeping with Delos’s long-standing tradition of legendary organ albums. He is held in particularly high regard among his fellow virtuosos for his mastery of the grand “symphonic style” of organ playing.
Fans of great orchestral classics will immediately recognize both of the works featured here: Edvard Grieg’s ever-popular Holberg Suite and Ce?sar Franck’s monumental Symphony in D Minor – in stunning transcriptions for organ: the instrument best suited to recreate an orchestra’s power, nuance, and variety of sonorities. Murray plays the magnificent Schoenstein Gloria Dei Organ, St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, Houston, Texas.
Continuing his long tradition of outstanding recordings with Delos, organist Thomas Murray presents this album of symphonic masterworks by Edvard Grieg and Cesar Franck. These outstanding arrangements of orchestral classics are performed beautifully on the organ- the instrument best suited to reconstruct the orchestra’s variances, nuances, and power. “…consummate skill and artistry in treating the organ as a great orchestra.” (High Fidelity)
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REVIEW:
The playing of Thomas Murray is faultless; his clear belief in these arrangements carries them through coupled with his sensible choices of tempo and his clear understanding of the Franck Symphony’s musical processes. Sonically, the disc is a treat.
– Fanfare
Symphonic Masterworks of Grieg & Franck / Murray
$18.99
CD
Delos
Jun 10, 2016
DE 3525
Grieg: Works For Piano Vol 9 / Antonio Pompa-baldi
Centaur Records
Available as
CD
$18.99
Oct 01, 2008
Classical Music
Grieg: Works For Piano Vol 9 / Antonio Pompa-baldi
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