Grieg: Songs / Bodil Arnesen, Erling Ragner Eriksen

$19.99
Label
Naxos
Release Date
January 15, 1997
Format
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    Featuring ⌄
    • COMPOSER
      GRIEG
    • PERFORMER
      Erling Ragnar, Bodil, Eriksen, Arnesen
    Product Details ⌄
    • RELEASE DATE
      January 15, 1997
    • UPC
      730099478120
    • CATALOG NUMBER
      8553781
    • LABEL
      Naxos
    • NUMBER OF DISCS
      1
    • GENRE
      Orchestral & Symphonic
    Works ⌄

    1. Fem digte, Op. 26: I. Et Hab (Hope)

      Composer: Edvard Grieg

      Performer: Bodil Arnesen, Erling Ragnar Eriksen

    2. III. Jeg elsker Dig (I Love but Thee)

      Composer: Edvard Grieg

      Performer: Bodil Arnesen, Erling Ragnar Eriksen

    3. I. To brune Ojne (Two Brown Eyes)

      Composer: Edvard Grieg

      Performer: Bodil Arnesen, Erling Ragnar Eriksen

    4. I. Det forste Mode (The First Meeting)

      Composer: Edvard Grieg

      Performer: Bodil Arnesen, Erling Ragnar Eriksen

    5. II. God Morgen! (Good Morning!)

      Composer: Edvard Grieg

      Performer: Bodil Arnesen, Erling Ragnar Eriksen

    6. III. Jeg giver mit digt til varen (To Springtime My Song I'm Singing)

      Composer: Edvard Grieg

      Performer: Bodil Arnesen, Erling Ragnar Eriksen

    7. IV. Tak for dit Rad (Say What You Will)

      Composer: Edvard Grieg

      Performer: Bodil Arnesen, Erling Ragnar Eriksen

    8. Prinsessen (The Princess), EG 133

      Composer: Edvard Grieg

      Performer: Bodil Arnesen, Erling Ragnar Eriksen

    9. Romancer, Op. 39: I. Fra Monte Pincio (From Monte Pincio)

      Composer: Edvard Grieg

      Performer: Bodil Arnesen, Erling Ragnar Eriksen

    10. XIX. Solveigs Sang (Solveig's Song)

      Composer: Edvard Grieg

      Performer: Bodil Arnesen, Erling Ragnar Eriksen

    11. XXVI. Solveigs Vuggevise (Solveig's Cradle Song)

      Composer: Edvard Grieg

      Performer: Bodil Arnesen, Erling Ragnar Eriksen

    12. No. 1. Gruss (Greeting)

      Composer: Edvard Grieg

      Performer: Bodil Arnesen, Erling Ragnar Eriksen

    13. No. 2. Dereinst, Gedanke mein (One day, O heart of mine)

      Composer: Edvard Grieg

      Performer: Bodil Arnesen, Erling Ragnar Eriksen

    14. No. 3. Lauf der Welt (The way of the world)

      Composer: Edvard Grieg

      Performer: Bodil Arnesen, Erling Ragnar Eriksen

    15. No. 4. Die verschwiegene Nachtigall (The nightingale's secret)

      Composer: Edvard Grieg

      Performer: Bodil Arnesen, Erling Ragnar Eriksen

    16. No. 5. Zur Rosenzeit (The time of roses)

      Composer: Edvard Grieg

      Performer: Bodil Arnesen, Erling Ragnar Eriksen

    17. No. 6. Ein Traum (A dream)

      Composer: Edvard Grieg

      Performer: Bodil Arnesen, Erling Ragnar Eriksen

    18. 4 Songs, Op. 15: No. 1. Margretes Vuggesang (Margaret's Cradle Song)

      Composer: Edvard Grieg

      Performer: Bodil Arnesen, Erling Ragnar Eriksen

    19. II. Jeg reiste en deiling Sommerkvaeld (I Walked One Balmy Summer Eve)

      Composer: Edvard Grieg

      Performer: Bodil Arnesen, Erling Ragnar Eriksen

    20. IV. Med en Primula veris (The First Primrose)

      Composer: Edvard Grieg

      Performer: Bodil Arnesen, Erling Ragnar Eriksen

    21. 12 Songs, Op. 33: No. 2. Varen (Last Spring)

      Composer: Edvard Grieg

      Performer: Bodil Arnesen, Erling Ragnar Eriksen

    22. Romancer , Op. 39: III. I Liden hojt deroppe (Upon a Grassy Hillside)

      Composer: Edvard Grieg

      Performer: Bodil Arnesen, Erling Ragnar Eriksen

    23. Elegiske digte , Op. 59: IV. Til En. II (To Her)

      Composer: Edvard Grieg

      Performer: Bodil Arnesen, Erling Ragnar Eriksen

    24. Digte, Op. 60: III. Mens jeg venter (On the Water)

      Composer: Edvard Grieg

      Performer: Bodil Arnesen, Erling Ragnar Eriksen

    25. 6 Poems, Op. 25: No. 2. En svane (A Swan)

      Composer: Edvard Grieg

      Performer: Bodil Arnesen, Erling Ragnar Eriksen

    26. Seks digte, Op 49: VI. Foraarsregn (Spring Showers)

      Composer: Edvard Grieg

      Performer: Bodil Arnesen, Erling Ragnar Eriksen

    27. 12 Songs, Op. 33: No. 9. Ved Rondane (At Rondane)

      Composer: Edvard Grieg

      Performer: Bodil Arnesen, Erling Ragnar Eriksen

    28. 6 Poems, Op. 25: No. 6. En fuglevise (A Birdsong)

      Composer: Edvard Grieg

      Performer: Bodil Arnesen, Erling Ragnar Eriksen


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]