Grieg was the first great composer in the late 1880's to travel around Norway collecting folk tunes from the rural population and these proved to be a genuine source of inspiration to him. For John McCabe, as his original note for these recordings makes clear, Grieg was a far more significant figure than popular appreciation would suggest and these recordings came as quite revelatory in the early 1980's to wider audiences outside of the inner circle of specialists in Norweigian music.