Composer: Edvard Hagerup Grieg
Performer: Einar Steen-Nøkleberg
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Naxos
Catalogue: 8550882
Release: 1995
Size: 195 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Improvisations on 2 Norwegian Folksongs, Op. 29
01. Allegretto con moto. Allegro. Molto vivace. Tempo I. Agitato e Pesante
02. Andante. Animato. Pesto leggiero. Tempo 1
Ten Song Arrangements from Norges Melodier (Norwegian Melodies)
03. A Ballad to Saint Olaf, EG 108
25 Norwegian Folksongs & Dances, Op. 17
04. Springdans (Folk Dance)
05. Ungersvennen (The Young Man)
06. Springdans (Folk Dance)
07. Niels Tallefjorden
08. Jolstring (Dance from Joelster)
09. Brurelat (Wedding Song)
10. Halling (Folk Dance)
11. Grisen (The Pig)
12. Nar mitt oye (Religious Song)
13. Friervise (Wooer’s Song)
14. Kjempevise (Heroic Ballad)
15. Solfager og ormekongen (Solfager and the Snake King)
16. Reiselat (Travel Song)
17. Jeg sjunger med sorrigfullt hjerte (I Sing with a Sorrowful Heart)
18. Den siste Lordagskvelden (Last Saturday Evening)
19. Eg veit ei lita Jente (I Know a Little Maiden)
20. Kleggen og Fluga (The Horsefly and the Fly)
21. Stabbelaten (Peasant Dance)
22. Hoelje Dale
23. Halling
24. Saebygga (The Woman from Setesdhal)
25. Kulok (Cow Call)
26. Sag du nokke te kjerringa mi (Have You by Chance Seen My Wife)
27. Brurelat (Wedding Song)
28. Rabnabryllup (The Raven’s Wedding)
Lyric Pieces VII, Op. 62
29. The First Meeting, Op. 52, No. 2
19 Norwegian Folksongs, Op. 66
30. Kulok (Cow Call)
31. Det er den storste darlighed (It is the Greatest Folly)
32. En konge hersket i Osterland (A King Ruled in the East)
33. Siri Dale visen (The Siri Dale Song)
34. Det var i min ungdom (It Happened in My Youth)
35. Lok og Badnlat (Call and Lullaby)
36. Badnlat (Lullaby)
37. Lok (Call)
38. Liten va guten (Small was the Lad)
39. Morgo ska du fa gifte deg (Tomorrow You Marry)
40. Der stander to piger (There Stood Two Girls)
41. Ranveig
42. En liten gra mann (A Little Grey Man)
43. I Ola-dalom, i Ola-kjonn (In Ola Valley, in Ola Lake)
44. Badnlat (Lullaby)
45. Ho vesle Astrid var (Our Little Astrid)
46. Badnlat (Lullaby)
47. Jeg gar i tusen tanker (I Wander Deep in Thought)
48. Gjendines Badnlat (Gjendine’s Lullaby)
These are the first four volumes of a complete Grieg cycle which stretches to no fewer than 14 discs. Since they are all at super-budget price they make a very competitive alternative to other complete or near-complete surveys. Einar Steen-Nøkleberg came into prominence during the 1970s and won numerous Norwegian and other prizes. He was professor of the piano at the Hanover Musikhochschule for a number of years and is the author of a monograph on Grieg’s piano music and its interpretation.
8 550881: The first disc juxtaposes early pieces, the Sonata, Op 7, the Op 6 Humoresques and the Funeral March for Rikard Nordraak, all written in the mid-1890s with his very last piano work, Stimmungen (or ‘Moods’), Op 73. He plays these bold and original pieces with great flair and understanding. Whatever its limitations there’s much greater range in Grieg’s piano music than is commonly realised and Steen-Nøkleberg is attuned to the whole spectrum it covers, whether in the Bartókian ‘Mountaineer’s Song’ from the Op 73 to the charm and innocence of the Allegretto con grazia, the third of the Humoresques, Op 6. 8 550882: The 19Norwegian Folksongs (1896) are remarkable pieces as Grieg himself knew. He wrote to the Dutch composer, Julius Röntgen, of having ‘put some hair-raising chromatic chords on paper.
The excuse is that they originated not on the piano but in my mind.’ Readers will recognise No 14 as the source of the theme for Delius’s Onhearing the first cuckoo in spring. Steen-Nøkleberg plays them with great tonal finesse and consummate artistry.
8 550883: The most substantial work on this disc is the Ballade which Grieg wrote on his parents’ death. This recording can hold its own with the best in this healthy area of the catalogue – even if there are moments when Steen-Nøkleberg seems too discursive. Yet what an imaginative colour he produces in the Adagio variation when the music suddenly melts pianissimo.8 550884: The Norwegian Peasant Dances are amazing pieces for their period, and though their audacity and dissonance were later overtaken by Bartók, they still retain their capacity to surprise. The playing conveys the extraordinary character and originality of these pieces as do few others. The smaller pieces contained on this disc – as well as on its companions – are full of rewards.