Peer Gynt Suites Nos

GRIEG Peer Gynt Suites Nos. 1 & 2 Lyric Pieces Sigurd Jorsalfar Wedding Day at Troldhaugen BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra Jerzy Maksymiuk Edvard Grieg (1843 - 1907) Peer Gynt Suites Nos. 1 & 2 Lyric Pieces, Op. 68, Nos. 4 & 5 Wedding Day at Troldhaugen, Op. 65, No. 6 Three Orchestral Pieces from Sigurd Jorsalfar, Op. 56 Edvard Grieg, the greatest of Norwegian composers, was descended on his mother's side from a Norwegian governor who had adopted the name of Haaeru~fromhisado~tivefather. the BishooofTrondheim.On hisfather'sside he was of Scottish ancestry. His great-grandfather, Alexander Greig, had left Scotland afterthebattle of cullodeti, when the cause of the~tuartclaimantsto the thronesof Enalandand Scotlandwasfinallvdestrovedbvthe Enalisharmvunder its royal ~anGerianaeneral.In ~orwavthe~reigs6ecahe~rie~sanddu;ing the nineteenthcentury established them~elvesc~~fortabl~in theirnew country, his father and grandfather both having served as British consul in Bergen. The Grieg household provided a musical background for a child. Musicians visited the family and these visitors included the distinguished violinist Ole Bull, who ~ersuadedthe Grieas to send their son Edvardto Lei~ziaConservatow, an instiiution he entered at 6eage of fifteen, there to benefit ire;the demands of a traditional German musical education. In Leipzig not everything was to Grieg's liking. He objected to the dryness of normal piano instruction, based on the workof Czerny and Clementi, and was able to change to a teacherwho was to instil in him a love of Schumann. He attended concerts by the famous Gewandhaus Orchestra that Mendelssohn had once directed and was present when Clara Schumann played her husband's piano concerto there and at performances of Wagner's Tannhauser. At the same time hewasableto meet other musicians, includ~ng~rthur~ullivan,whose laterfame, at least, was to depend on the music he wrote for the ooerettas of W. S. Gilbert in London. After a short period at home again in Norway, where he was unable to obtain a state pension, Grieg moved to Denmark. The capital, Copenhagen, was a cultural centre for both countries, and here he had considerable encouragement from Niels Gade. The principal influence that was to change his life came from a meetina with Rikard Nordraak. avouna Norweaian.' who fired him with ambition to ~eek-ins~irationin the folk-music ofhorwayy Nordraak was to die tragically young, at the age of 24. Grieg, however, continued to prepare himself for employment in Norway, first of all taking a long holiday, which led him to Rome, where he met the great Norwegian dramatist ~enriklbsen. It was a concert arranged by Grieg in christiania (Oslo) and given bv him with his cousin and future wife Nina Haaeruo and theviolinist Wilhelmine krman-~erudathat secured him a position ii~oha~and provided support for the projected Norwegian Academy of Music, established in the following year, 1867. The period thatfollowed saw Grieg'sstruggle, with the backing of Liszt and the support of his friend, the dramatist and theatre-director Bjsrnson, to establish somesort of national musical movement in Norway. Hedivided histime between concert activities, on tour as conductor and pianist, composition, and periods spent in enjoyment of the Norwegian countryside. Grieg's ambitionsfor Norwegian musicwerevery largely realised. At home he occupied apositionof honour, and his collaborationwith the writers Bjsrnson and lbsen further identified him with the culture of his homeland. He died in 1907, as hewas aboutto undertakeone moreconcerttour. For years he had sufferedfrom lung trouble, the result of an illness in hisstudent days. Itwas thisthatwasto bring about his death at the age of 64. Among the best known music that Grieg wrote was his incidental music for Ibsen's remarkable play Peer Gynt, first pe?ormed in Christiania in 1876. Suite No. 1 onenswith the famous Mornina. musicthat seems basedon the Norweaian fiddle, ihe hardanger, with itscharac%eristictuning.In the drama the pieceserves asan introductionto Act IV, set on thesouth-western coast of Morocco.Thescene immediately follows the death of Peer's mother, Aase, with which Act Ill had 3 8.550864 ended. Anitra's Dance, in the fourth act, welcomes Peer Gynt, hailing him as prophet and master, in his Arab robes. The final excerpt in the first suite is from Act-11,set in the mountains of Norway, the land of rolls sand of the Old Man of the Dovre, whose daughter Peer Gynt courts and whose kingdom he covets. Suite No. 2opens with Ingrid's Lament, the introductionto Act II, set on a high narrow mountain-track, where Peer Gynt has taken Ingrid, a bride that he has abductedfrom herweddingand now plansto betray. The Arabian Dance istaken from Act IV, where Peer has donned his Arab robes, and Peer's Homecoming from the introduction to Act V, as Peer Gynt returns as an old man to his own country. Solveig's Song, from Act IV, offers a brief glimpse of the girl, now a middle-agedwoman, whosits waiting for Peer Gynt in the far North. She is there toaccept him homeagain after hiswanderingasthe fifth and final act of thedrama comes to an end. During his life Grieg wrote a large number of so-called Lyrische SMcke, Lyric Pieces, primarily forpiano solo.~earranged two of the pieces of Opus 68, Evening in the Mountains and Cradle Sona for orchestra. The work was written in 1898Ywedding Day at Troldhaugen is tacen from an earliersetof Lyric Pieces, written in the previous year, and was arranged by the composer also for piano duet. The incidental music for Bjrarnson's play Sigurd Jorsalfar was completed in 1872 and used when the playwas staged in ~hktianiain ~a~ of the same year. Birarnson has suffered bv comparison with his areat contemooratv Ibsen. His fame has not travelled s&ar and his relevancetothe development df drama has seemed more local. The threeorchestral pieces that Grieg extracted from the five of the oriainal score ooen with a Prelude. continue with Borahild's Dream. originally the first musidof the score, and end with the Homage 6larch. BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestraoccupies an important position in the musical lifeof Scotland. ltwas founded in 1935 bv Ian Whvte. then Head of Music for BBC Scotland, based at first in Edinburgh aid then in ~ias~ow,the first full- time professional orchestra in the country. In addition to its work with Scottish composers, conductors and soloists, the orchestra has performed with artists of thegreatestdistinction, from Schnabel to Shostakovich, whilealso doing much to encourage younger conductors early in their careers. The present principal conductor is Jerzy Maksymiuk. Theorchestra hasa busyscheduleof broadcasts and publicconcerts, including annual appearancesatthe Edinburgh Festivaland the London Promenade Concerts, and has toured abroad throughout Europe, to North Americaand the Far East. In addition to recordingsfor ~axosand Marc0 Polo. the BBC Scottish SvmohonvOrchestrahas releaseda number of compact discsonthe ~~~erionand ~och-~chwann labelsand in 1992 won a~ramo~hone Award for its Hyperion recording of Medtner Piano Concertos with Nikolai Demidenko. Jerzy Maksymiuk Jerzy Maksymiukwasborn in Grodnoandstudiedviolin, piano, conductingand com~ositionat the Warsaw Consewatow. In 1964 he won first prize in the ~aderewskiPiano Competition but sooi turned his attention p;incipally to conducting, in particular in the establishment and extensive touring throughout Europe of the Polish Chamber Orchestra. From 1975 to 1977 he was also Principal Conductor of the Polish National Radio Orchestra and in 1984 was appointed Chief Conductor'of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestrawith which he has toured extensively and made a number ofcommercialrecordings. Jerzy Maksvmiuk has worked with many of the maior orchestras in Europe, the United statesof ~mericaand~a~an, andin 1990 made hisdebut atthe ~n~lkhNational Opera with performances of Mozart's Don Giovanni. Edvard Grieg Orchesterstiicke aus Peer Gynt und Sigurd Jorsalfar . Lyrische Stiicke . Norwegischer Brautzug Anden Randern Mitteleuropas.vollziehtsich im Laufedes 19. Jahrhundertsein EmanzipationsprozeOvonauOerordentlicherTraaweite. Diezentrale Bedeutuna der de;tsch-osterreichischen, italienischen uni franzijsischen Musik weicfi ganz allmahlich einer Selbstfindung, die sich - zeitlich versetzt - allerorten nachweisenIaOt: In RuOland beis~ielsweisebrinat der Amateurkom~onistMikhai'l Glinka seine Opern "Ruslan und iudmilla"undl%in ~ebenfur den taren" auf die Bijhne, und er wird zum Vorbild des "Machtigen Haufleins", das sich um Mili Balakirew bildet und mit Alexander Borodin, Modest Mussorgsky und Nikolai Rimsky-Korssakoff drei KunstlervonWeltgeltung zu seinen Mitgliedernzahlt. In Bohmen sind zunachst Friedrich Smetana und dann Antonin Dvokik die herausragendenReprasentanten einereindeutig national orientierten Musik. Und gegen Ende des Jahrhunderts hat auch Spanien sein eiaenes- Gewicht in die gesamteuropaische ~ulturwa~schale~ewo~fen. In Skandinavienfindet man dieselbe Entwicklung. Besonders der Dane Johann Peter Emilius Haltmann(1 805-1 900), dersich trotzseinesstudien-Aufenthaltes in Leipzig nicht vorn Virus der deutschen Romantik infizieren lie8, kehrt an die Quellen der eigenen Volksmusik zuruck, um nach einem "urnordischen" Stil zu suchen. Hartmann undsein Landsmann Niels W. Gadesindesdannauch, dieauf den jungen norwegischen Musiker namens Edvard Grieg einen groOen EinfluO ausuben, als dieser 1863 erstmals nach Kopenhagen-kommtr Wahrend die vierjahrigeAusbildung am Leipziaer Konselvatoriumin

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