If Chopin "invented" the Mazurka, then surely by the same token Grieg "invented" the Lyric Piece. Over his lifetime he published ten volumes of Lyric Pieces, containing sixty-six individual works. Born in Bergen, Grieg studied in Leipzig and became established as Norway’s leading composer, successfully synthesising Norwegian folk music with the forms and conventions of the German tradition. While he was internationally acclaimed for his Piano Concerto and the incidental music to Peer Gynt, the vast majority of his output lies not in large-scale works, but in smaller, more intimate forms, especially songs and, of course, his Lyric Pieces. Peter Donohoe writes: "as a teenager I expanded my knowledge of the music of Grieg to include many solo piano pieces as well as the better-known orchestral works. I was beguiled by his style, and the reason remains somewhat intangible. Although one is able to identify the originality of Grieg as a composer – the Norwegian folk element in his music, his natural gift for memorable melodic lines, his occasional diversions into unique and extraordinarily forward-looking harmonies, and, to some degree, his emotional naïveté – there is a unique, unidentifiable kernel in his output that defies analysis, as is true of the work of all the great composers... All these works are pristine examples of his diverse and original style – Norwegian with a Germanic flavour – and it has been a huge and satisfying pleasure to return to them to create this and future recordings". © Chandos

Janina Fialkowska's 2015 release on ATMA Classique is a selection of Edvard Grieg's Lyric Pieces, drawn from the full set of 66 miniatures, which were published between 1867 and 1901. Her choice of the most popular character pieces reflects a common practice among pianists to fit a representative sample on a single disc, necessarily leaving out less familiar numbers along the way. As a result, her CD of 25 tracks is comparable to other highlights albums that typically feature such favorites as the Berceuse, Butterfly, March of the Trolls, Sylph, Wedding Day at Troldhaugen, Evening in the Mountains, and Remembrances. While Fialkowska's long career has yielded many fine recordings of Chopin, Schubert, and Liszt, this sensitive exploration of Grieg is a welcome addition to an impressive catalog that has been focused almost exclusively on the early Romantic period.© TiVo

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.© TiVo

Having completed his studies at the Brussels Conservatoire and won first prizes at several distinguished competitions for young musicians, Matthieu Idmtal quickly became known as a specialist in the music of Alexander Scriabin. His debut on record was dedicated to a sequence of the Russian composer’s Etudes and Preludes, and it won him golden reviews: "I have listened to Sofronitsky, Gilels, Richter and Ashkenazy – great Scriabin players all. Young Matthieu Idmtal has the potential to join that lofty group". (American Record Guide) His Scriabin recital was followed by an equally well-received album of the Violin Sonatas by Edvard Grieg, in company with his regular violin-recital partner Maya Levy. The natural sequel is this focus on the Norwegian composer’s solo output. Grieg composed seven books of Lyric Pieces across the course of his career: songs without words that amount to a diary of his compositional evolution as well as testament to enduring preoccupations such as the artistic transformation of folksong and the evocation of natural phenomena such as sunlight and the movement of water. Idmtal’s sequence ranges across all seven books, and does not shy away from established classics such as the Arietta and Wedding Day at Troldhaugen. However, he also includes several lesser-known and introspective masterpieces such as the Vanished Days and Homesickness from the Opus 57 set. Even by their side, however, the Piano Sonata, Op. 7 is an almost forgotten masterpiece. Grieg wrote it at the age of 22, recently graduated from the conservatoire in Leipzig, yet even within the first movement’s opening exposition there are shapes and harmonies that instantly identify the composer’s artistic fingerprint. This Sonata reflects the ambitions and character of the young Grieg: high-spirited, virtuosic, impetuous, and permeated with brusque mood swings. Cast in a compressed version of the traditional four-movement form, it encompasses many changes of mood, sometimes very abrupt, as if the composer was overflowing with musical ideas and inspiration. It makes an ideal introduction to the familiar world of the Lyric Pieces as well as a notable debut for Matthieu Idmtal on Piano Classics. © Piano Classics

Russian pianist Katya Apekisheva is a veteran of the festival and competition circuit; Grieg Piano Music is her second CD for the English label Quartz and her first for the company as soloist. The selection is well chosen, containing Grieg's piano solo version of Holberg Suite, the Poetic Tone-Pictures, and a dozen pieces drawn from the Lyric Suites that form a good representation of that series as a whole, containing many of the best-known works therein. Apekisheva is an ideal competition-grade pianist; she gets all of the notes in where they belong, follows tempi with care, and transmits what's on the page in a literal, not a figurative, sense. As such, these recordings would be excellent for student pianists trying to learn the ropes in this literature. However, from a purely listening standpoint, this is also Apekisheva's greatest drawback. Grieg's music needs to sing, to breathe; while virtuosic elements in the music come off with precision here, slower, less difficult melodic passages are quiet, pristine, and rather lacking in poetry. One hopes for the personality of the pianist to raise Grieg's music to the realm of the exalted; the expected and score-faithful just isn't enough as Grieg cannot be eaten cold. Quartz's recording is at its best in loud passages, where the weight and power of Apekisheva's grand rings out in full display; otherwise the short reverb in the room, combined with the digital sound, adds a metallic sheen to the sound of the piano that's less than unattractive, but not to the point where its consistently bothersome. © TiVo

The Sibelius Symphony No. 4 in A minor, Op. 63, is a classically gloomy work, received coolly by its original audiences even though the composer was enormously popular. Sibelius wrote it while suffering from throat cancer that could easily have killed him; as it happened, surgery was successful, and he lived for another 46 years. It is generally taken to exemplify a peculiarly deep kind of Nordic gloom. Conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali has gained quite a reputation for shaking up conventional interpretations, and interested listeners put this album on classical best-seller lists in early 2024. Here, he delivers more of the same, with a reading of the Fourth that is nervous and even a bit action-packed rather than gloomy. His performance is actually slightly slower than average, but it doesn't seem like it with all the little climaxes Rouvali inserts into the work. It is almost as if he is coming down on the side of the Sibelius contemporaries who argued for a hidden program in the symphony, something Sibelius himself denied. It is not a typical Sibelius Fourth, but it is intriguing, and the Gothenburg Symphony follows Rouvali effectively through unknown territory. In a work that does indeed have a program, The Wood Nymph, Op. 15, Rouvali offers a highly persuasive performance. He closes with a familiar work, the Valse triste, Op. 44, No. 1, but here again, he pushes the tempo; it is not an encore-type Valse triste. It is hard to know what to think of Rouvali's readings; perhaps he will set new standards, or perhaps they will be interpretational blips. Sample and decide.© James Manheim /TiVo