Composer: Edvard Grieg
Performer: Leif Ove Andsnes
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Warner
Catalogue: 5572962
Release: 2023
Size: 195 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: cover
Lyric Pieces, Op.12 (Book 1)
01. No.1 Arietta
02. No.2 Waltz
03. No.6 Norwegian Melody
04. No.5 Folk Melody
Lyric Pieces, Op.38 (Book 2)
05. No.8 Canon
06. No.6 Elegy
07. No.7 Waltz
Lyric Pieces, Op.47 (Book 4)
08. No.3 Melody
Lyric Pieces, Op.54 (Book 5)
09. No.3 March of the Trolls (Troldtog)
10. No.4 Notturno
Lyric Pieces Op. 57 (Book 6)
11. No.2 Gade
12. No.3 Illusion
13. No.6 Homesickness (Heimweh)
Grieg: Lyric Pieces Op. 62 (Book 7)
14. No.6 Homeward (Hjemad)
15. No.4 The Brook (Baekken)
16. No.5 Phantom (Drömmesyn)
17. No.1 Sylph (Sylfide)
Lyric Pieces, Op.68 (Book 9)
18. No.5 Cradle song (Bådnlåt)
19. Wedding Day at Troldhaugen (from Lyric Pieces Op. 65)
Lyric Pieces Op. 68 (Book 9)
20. No.4 Evening in the mountains (Aften på höjfeldet)
21. No.3 At your feet (For dine födder)
Lyric Pieces Op. 71 (Book 10)
22. No.2 Summer evening (Sommeraften)
23. No.6 Gone (Forbi)
24. No.7 Remembrances (Efterklang)
Once again on home ground, Andsnes reminds you of his capacity to go directly to the heart of the matter. Taking you on a journey of increasing subtlety and introspection, he makes you aware that so much of this music is for those long winter nights. At the same time the music is so richly varied: ‘Melody’s insistent dactylic rhythm creates a strange unsettling poetic ambience, while the central oasis of calm in ‘Wedding Day at Troldhaugen’ would surely melt a heart of stone.
All Andsnes’s performances have that deceptive simplicity which is his touchstone. His playing is always sensitive, never sentimental and with a bracing and essential ‘touch of the codfish’ (Grieg) when required. And while one would never want to be without Gilels’ rapt DG performances (see below), praise could hardly be too high for a pianist who so enviably captures the poignant nature of a composer who Tchaikovsky once claimed had ‘a glance like a charming and candid child’. Grieg’s piano, with its distinctive timbre, provides an added touch of nostalgia.
Andsnes penetrates the psyche of this music, and his playing of consummate artistry and insight. Not only does he have keen poetic feeling but magisterial pianistic finesse.
Was so lovely a recording of such sweet-souled music expected from modernist virtuoso Leif Ove Andsnes? Was it expected that the sharp-cornered and hard-edged Andsnes — the player whose Schumann is tart, whose Brahms is bitter, whose Chopin is cruel — could have played Grieg’s delightful and delectable Lyric Pieces with such beauty of tone, gentleness of touch, suppleness of phrasing, and such deep and abiding affection? Sure. Andsnes has recorded works of Grieg before, notably on a splendid disc of Lyric Pieces for Virgin, and this EMI recording of more Lyric Pieces is cut from the same soft, silken cloth. But as splendid as that disc was, this one is even better. Not only has Andsnes matured as a player — listen to his restraint even in such showstoppers as March of the Trolls — but he is playing Grieg’s piano in Grieg’s living room in his home at Troldhaugen. In other words, he is playing the instrument upon which these pieces were written played in the room in which they were written. Grieg’s Steinway is a mellow-toned instrument with a singing middle range and a ringing upper register, and it perfectly suits his music. As do Andsnes’ performances. From the early delicate Arietta (1867) through the sensuous Notturno (1883) and the aching Homesickness (1893) to the shimmering Evening in the Mountains (1898), Andsnes seems in complete sympathy with Grieg’s exquisite miniatures. And when Grieg does ask for virtuoso technique as in the rapturously joyous Wedding Day at Troldhaugen, Andsnes, the model of a modernist virtuoso, tears through it with ecstatic abandon.