Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

REVIEWS:
American Record Guide (11-12/97, p.130) - "...This Norwegian duo nearly manages to convince the listener that these are some of the finest sonatas ever written. Kraggerud is a real virtuoso, with highly polished technique and style, and Kjekshus is an enthusiastic partner..."

Grieg's 'forbidden' Symphony might be derivative; nevertheless it is a real find. A delightful programme with all the freshness of a Norwegian spring.

Disconcertingly, Grieg wrote of his own ‘forbidden’ C minor Symphony - composed when he was just 20/21 - that it ‘must never be performed’. As conductor, Bjarte Engeset, remarks in his fulsome and admirable notes: “… during its 113-year enchanted sleep (commentators) wrote about it disparagingly: it was ‘clumsy’, ‘stiff’, ‘barely out of school’ and not Norwegian enough”. Granted that there are clear associations with the styles of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann and the Danish composer Niels Gade, but it is to Engeset’s credit that he and his orchestra and production team recognized the youthful ebullience, out-of-doors freshness and lyrical qualities of the work enough to proceed to record it again. There have been other recordings including those by the Norwegian Radio Orchestra with Ari Rasilainen (Apex), Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra with Okko Kamo (Bis), Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra/Terje Mikkelsen (Simax), Neeme Järvi DG box, and the very first recording now on Decca Eloquence with Karsten Andersen and the Bergen Symphony Orchestra. That pioneering recording was issued in splendidly expensive isolation on a full price CD circa 1984.

The opening movement is a procession of attractive melodies: stirring marches, heroic material and romantic themes. The lyrical, tender Adagio espressivo second movement and especially the more rustic Intermezzo are quite Schumann-like with a dash of Mendelssohn - influences too apparent, or so it seems, in Grieg’s estimation. Virtuosically fast tempos inform the finale which crackles with joie de vivre. The Malmö players rise magnificently to the work’s challenges, sensitively recognizing the Symphony’s subtle harmonic shifts and nuances of colour.

Grieg’s Old Norwegian Romance with Variations is built on the heroic ballad melody, ‘Sjugur and the Troll-Bride’, stated after a short rather belying dark introduction. Grieg wanted to show how great a potential there was in such a folk-tune. Certainly, through its 18 variations, Grieg skilfully assembles music in an impressive range of moods and styles: marches, minuets, waltzes, dramatic and playful interludes, lyrical and pastoral, tempestuous, tranquil and pompous, all engagingly melodic.

With the Three Orchestral Pieces from ‘Sigurd Jorsalfar’ we reach more familiar ground. The play revolves around two brothers: Sigurd with his calling to the crusades and the gentle home-loving Eystejn. ‘Borghild’s Dream’ begins calmly but grows agitated as her sleep becomes increasingly troubled, the music building a powerful sense of dread. The Malmö players perform, with nice intensity, the much-performed ‘Homage March’ which has a ceremonial and regal-heroic quality.

Grieg’s ‘forbidden’ Symphony in C minor might be derivative, nevertheless it is a real find.

An altogether delightful programme with all the freshness of a Norwegian spring.

-- Ian Lace, MusicWeb International

Edvard Grieg: Symphonic Works Vol. I present two of the composer’s principal collections on 180g vinyl LP: the first Peer Gynt Suite, Op. 46 and his four Symphonic Dances, Op. 64. Eivind Aadland's roots in the tradition of Norwegian folk music influence his interpretations. Grieg's connections with Germany stretched from his Leipzig studies to his numerous concert performances and extraordinary circulation of his works there. This recording, with the WDR Symphony Orchestra Köln, represents on several levels a German-Norwegian synthesis already in existence during Grieg's lifetime.

Though Anne Sofie von Otter’s Gramophone Award-winning disc remains the clear choice for a single record devoted to Grieg’s songs, this new one runs it close. Bodil Arnesen is a young lyric soprano with just the right freshness for these open-air songs (as so many of them are) of spring and hope. She is entirely firm, has a healthy glow on the upper notes, shows a nice feeling for nuance, and knows how to make the voice smile. Some limitation is felt in the few darker songs, such as the second of Op. 48, “Dareinst, Gedanke mein”, which von Otter takes at a slower pace, introducing an unearthly pallor into the tone, and providing a more weighty reminder of the link back to Schubert’s Wanderers Nachtlied and forward to Strauss’s Ruhe, meine Seele. Then in the next song, “Lauf der Welt”, von Otter has a style at once bolder and more confiding: she communicates as though to a larger audience and so on a bigger scale, enlarging what one might call the vocal gestures of intimacy to match. Yet for home-listening, especially if you are playing at a good volume, I’m not sure that such large expressiveness isn’t just a little overwhelming: certainly the return, from that, to the soprano’s relatively miniaturist style is no hardship.

The choice of songs is fine, so too the programming, in which the sequence (not chronological) is sensible and satisfying. For a proper conspectus of Grieg’s songs it is necessary to have the Haugtussa cycle, which von Otter includes and Arnesen does not; there is compensation, however, in the charming Bjornson settings (Op. 21), the two songs of Solveig, and others such as The Princess and “With a primrose” which are among the best of all. Erling Eriksen accompanies sympathetically, the balance of voice and piano is well judged and the booklet provides useful and attractive companionship.

-- Gramophone [5/1997]

Grieg: Piano Music, Vol. 9

Grieg: Piano Music, Vol. 8

"[Steen-Nokleberg's] playing brims in turn with charm, pathos, nostalgia, simplicity, drama and whatever else is needed – invariably appropriate, straightforward, unaffected and vivid. The Holberg Suite has a performance of unparalleled vigour and charm. It’s almost impossible to imagine this music better interpreted. Sound quality is good and value is excellent indeed. I’m looking forward to the other discs."

-- Jessica Duchen, BBC Music Magazine

"This CD includes the poignant Ballade in G minor, Op. 24, composed by Grieg on the death of his parents. Steen-Nokleerg is highly imaginative and...the keyboard colouring is subtle and rich. He conveys a splendidly rhapsodic spontaneity and there is much feeling. This [disc] deserves a particularly strong recommendation."

Penguin Guide [2003/4 Edition]

Born and raised in Foggia, Italy, Antonio Pompa-Baldi first came to the U.S. in 1999 to participate in the Cleveland International Piano Competition. He won the First Prize, and embarked on a career that continues to extend across five continents. A top prize winner at the 1998 Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition of Paris, France, Antonio Pompa-Baldi also won a silver medal at the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, as well as the Award for the Best Performance of a New Work. - Pompa-Baldi.com

Antonio Pompa-Baldi continues his series of recordings for Centaur devoted to the music of Edvard Grieg with the ever popular Piano Concerto.

This 2-disc set consists of a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players plus an audio-only (i.e., with no video content) Blu-ray disc of the same music playable only on Blu-ray players.

The magic of a "time machine" brings Percy Grainger's original performance back to life in this modern surround-sound recording with the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Rolf Gupta. Edvard Grieg himself bears witness to the validity and authenticity of Grainger's interpretation through his own enthusiastic endorsement: "I had to become sixty-four years old to hear Norwegian piano music interpreted so understandingly and brilliantly. He breaks new ground for himself, for me, and for Norway. And then this enchanting, profound, serious, and childlike naturalness! What a joy to gain a young friend with such qualities!"

In 2007, conductor Rolf Gupta gave the first Norwegian performance of Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto in A minor with the legendary Australian pianist Percy Grainger (1882-1961) as the posthumous soloist. On this recording, the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra accompanies Grainger's original and controversial interpretation of the concerto. In addition, the violinist Øyvind Bjorå and pianolist Rex Lawson perform Grieg's Violin Sonata in C minor. The recording also includes a handful of Grieg's Lyric Pieces, performed by the composer himself. Astonishingly, these performances have not been available to the public until now.

Two different instruments have facilitated Grainger's and Grieg's encounters with the KSO/Gupta in modern times. Grainger plays on a form of musical time machine, the Duo-Art reproducing piano, which is something like an analogue predecessor of the computer, powered by an electric suction pump, and controlled automatically by perforated rolls of paper. Grieg, on the other hand, has been restored to life by means of a foot-pedalled pianola, played by Rex Lawson. For this recording, both instruments were fitted in front of a Steinway concert grand piano and re-performed the playing of Grainger in 1921 and Grieg in 1906.

Grieg: Orchestral Music, Vol. 1: Piano Concerto - Symphonic