Piano Concerto : Work information

Composers
Edvard (Hagerup) Grieg ( Music, Images,)
Performed by
France Clidat (Piano), Philharmonia Orchestra, Zdenek Macal (Conductor)

This work

Work name
Piano Concerto
Work number
Op. 16
Key
A minor
Genre
A
Composed
1868-00-00 02:00:00

This recording

Label
Forlane CI
Producer
Ivan Pastor
Engineer
Jean-Martial Golaz
Recording date
1979-01-01 00:00:00

The Artists

Soloist: France Clidat (Piano)

From Japan to the USA, via France, the international press is unanimous: France Clidat is a virtuoso who arouses enthusiasm and public ovations wherever she goes.

Clidat feels a special passion for the music of Franz Liszt and Chopin, and in her performances, combines prodigious tenchincal capabilites with admirable subtelty and virtuosic frenzy. She has recorded the complete piano works of Liszt for Decca but since 1980, has recorded exclusively for Forlane.

Conductor: Zdenek Macal

Zdenek Macal studied at the Conservatory of Brno from 1951-56 with Bakala, Jilek and Veselka, then at the Janacek Academy in Prague from 1956-60. In the 1960s he won several international competitions and from 1966-68 regularly conducted the Prague Symphony Orchestra and the Czech Philharmonia. He took up residence in Switzerland in 1968 and from 1970-74 conducted the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra. He now guest conducts with many of the world's leading orchestras.

Ensemble: Philharmonia Orchestra

One of the great orchestras of the world, the Philharmonia remains one of the cornerstones of musical life in the UK. With residencies in London's Festival Hall and in Bedford, Leicester, and Basingstoke, the orchestra has grasped the opportunity to reach out to the wider community in a variety of educational programmes. A prominent ambassador for Britain, the orchestra has recently visited Russia, Japan, Germany and Switzerland, and has residencies in France and Greece. In 2002, the Philharmonia began its New York Residency at the Lincoln Center and will be returning in 2003 for a Carnegie Hall concert.

The Philharmonia, of course, has a distinguished history that has seen them work with some of the greatest conductors of all time, including Furtwängler, Toscanini, Karajan and Giulini. Otto Klemperer was the first in a long line of illustrious Principal Conductors and subsequent incumbents of the post have included Lorin Maazel, Riccardo Mutti and Giuseppe Sinopoli. Currently, the Philharmonia is in its sixth season with Principal Conductor Christoph van Dohnányi, and also works regularly with Kurt Sanderling, Vladimir Ashkenazy and Sir Charles Mackerras. The orchestra also works with many of the greatest soloists and guests this season have included Martha Argerich, Evgeny Kiisin, Murray Perahaia and Joshua Bell.

The world's most recorded symphony orchestra with over 1000 releases, the Philharmonia continues to make regular broadcasts for BBC Radio 3, including an annual appearance at the BBC Proms. In recent seasons, the orchestra has received two Evening Standard Awards for Outstanding Artistic Achievement and Outstanding Ensemble, and has won widespread acclaim for its innovative programming that seeks to commission and perform works by today's leading composers, including Julian Anderson and Magnus Lindberg. The Philharmonia also regularly records television and film soundtracks and recent projects have included The Red Violin, Channel 4's Shackleton and Miramax's The Shipping News.

The Composers

Edvard (Hagerup) Grieg

Edvard Grieg was born in Bergen, Norway. His mother Gesine was a fine piano teacher and taught her son from an early age. In the summer of 1858, the violin virtuoso Ole Bull came to visit Grieg’s parents. The young Edvard had to play for the world-famous violinist, who convinced his parents to send him to the Leipzig Conservatory, where he studied composition and piano. Whilst there, he contracted pleurisy, a kind of tuberculosis, which marked him for the rest of his life. His left lung collapsed, which made his back bend, and greatly reduced his lung capacity. Nevertheless he graduated from the conservatory with excellent marks in 1862. Bull remained a friend of and source of inspiration to Grieg until the violinist died in 1880.

After a period at home in Norway Grieg moved to Copenhagen and it was there that he met the young composer Rikard Nordraak, an enthusiastic champion of Norwegian music and a decisive influence on him. Whilst in Denmark, Grieg once again met his cousin Nina Hagerup. They had grown up together in Bergen, but Nina moved with her family to Copenhagen when she was eight. Nina was an excellent pianist, but it was her beautiful voice that fascinated Grieg. They were secretly engaged in 1864, and married on the 11th June 1867. None of their parents attended the wedding.

The Griegs moved from Copenhagen to Kristiania (Oslo) and lived off the income from Edvard’s work as a conductor and piano teacher. Their daughter Alexandra was born on the 10th April 1868. The same year, Grieg composed the Piano Concerto in A minor.

On the 21st May 1869 their daughter Alexandra died from meningitis, and in 1875 Grieg’s parents died. In addition to this, Grieg felt that he had stagnated artistically. The situation reached a critical point in 1883 when Edvard left Nina. The intervening force that rescued their marriage was Grieg’s friend Frants Beyer. He persuaded Grieg to reconcile with Nina, and they moved to Troldhaugen in order to start afresh.

Grieg's own performances of Norwegian music, often with his wife, established him as a leading figure in the music of his own country. This brought subsequent collaboration in the theatre with the poets Bjornson and with Ibsen. In 1888 and in 1893 Grieg published respectively the Peer Gynt Suites I and II, which contain the most popular melodies from the incidental music to Ibsen’s play.

Grieg continued to divide his time between composition and activity in the concert-hall. He toured extensively in Europe until his poor health caught up with him and he died, in 1907, of chronic exhaustion. He was the most important Norwegian composer of the later 19th century, a period of growing national consciousness.

- MIDI FILE - from "Lyric Pieces": Arietta (1'13'')

Track listing

  • Allegro molto moderato 12:45 min
  • Adagio 7:48 min
  • Allegro moderato molto e marcato 10:27 min

Notes

Grieg's most popular work, the Piano Concerto, was composed in the summer of 1868 while the composer was staying at Søllerød in Denmark. Later revised toward the end of his life, the Concerto was his first international triumph, and even won the approval of Liszt. Its first performance in Copenhagan on 3 April 1869 was a resounding success.

Opening with a characteristic Grieg motif (descending minor 2nd followed by a major 3rd), itself borrowed from Norwegian folk-song, the concerto makes extensive use of the music of Grieg's native land. The third movement, in particular, alludes to the halling and springar folk dances.

The abundance of melodic material evident in this concerto no doubt explains much of the work's popularity. There are seven themes alone in the first movement! The beautiful Adagio features some sublime writing for both Piano and Orchestra, and the exuberant finale is full of youthful vigour.