EDVARD GRIEG Complete Symphonic Works • Vol. V CAMILLA TILLING TOM ERIK LIE WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln EIVIND AADLAND EDVARD GRIEG Complete Symphonic Works Vol. VI Music to Henrik Ibsen‘s Peer Gynt, Op. 23 At the Wedding (Act I, Prelude) 5:08 Dance of the Mountain King’s Daughter (Act II, 6) 1:52 Six Orchestral Songs* Solveig’s Song, Op. 23 5:10 Solveig’s Cradle Song, Op. 23 4:12 From Monte Pincio, Op. 39 No. 1 5:12 A Swan, Op. 25 No. 2 2:41 Last Spring, Op. 33 No. 2 5:41 Henrik Wergeland, Op. 58 No. 3 4:11 Camilla Tilling Two Lyric Pieces, Op. 68 No. 4: Evening in the Mountains 3:52 No. 5: At the Cradle 4:12 The Mountain Thrall, Op. 32** 6:04 Norwegian Dances, Op. 35 I. Allegro marcato 6:35 II. Allegretto tranquillo e grazioso 2:27 III. Allegro moderato alla Marcia 3:14 IV. Allegro molto 5:45 Peer Gynt and his influence such”. Musically, he approached the rhythmically sharpened style of a Prokofiev Most plays in the nineteenth century had incidental music written for them: it or a Stravinsky. is striking that, in our perception today, most of this music appears to stand In its audacity and spontaneous freshness, the music for Ibsen’s drama was in peculiar contrast to the corresponding plays. Shakespeare’s A Midsummer one of Grieg’s happiest musical inspirations – perhaps exactly because he was Night’s Dream, with its swift tempo, grotesque transformations and cynicism pressed for time, writing for the performance at the Christiania Theatre in towards the lower classes is far more outré than Mendelssohn’s music. And February 1876, not wishing to disappoint the world-famous poet. Grieg would Edvard Grieg’s music for Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, whose title character is draw on his Peer Gynt material for a long time, arranging two orchestral suites misanthropic and egotistical, seems almost harmless – at least on first hearing, and recycling popular vocal numbers such as Solveig’s Song. Two Solveig songs which has made numbers such as Morning Mood and Solveig’s Song very popular. also open his cycle of Six Orchestral Songs which Grieg assembled from On closer inspection, however, the numbers with a more complex structure earlier songs during a stay in Copenhagen in 1894/95. The then 51-year-old reveal a modern streak which Grieg avoids in his other orchestral music. composer was seriously indisposed due to illness at the time, forced, with Let us examine the Prelude to Act I of Ibsen’s verse drama, showing the a heavy heart, to cancel conducting engagements in Germany; he used his peasant’s son Peer as loser and perky winner at the same time. Thanks to his recovery period to write contributions to a popular genre of the day, the indifference, he has spoiled his chances to marry the rich Ingrid, which would orchestral song. have restored his family’s finances. At the wedding celebrations, Solveig proves Solveig’s Song, with its wondrous shift from minor to major, essentially is a to be the only girl whom Peer really loves – nonetheless he abducts the bride, counterpart to Gretchen’s spinning song, “Meine Ruh ist hin” [My peace is gone] abandoning her after one night. In the Prelude (“At the Wedding”), Grieg pre- from Part I of Goethe’s Faust, even if in Grieg’s case it is not the restless spin- sents us with festive wedding music which had become a fixture in Romantic ning wheel but Solveig’s longing for the return of her unhappy love, Peer, which operas. But after only half a minute, this music pauses and, with an abrupt determines its character. Whilst Grieg kept the original instrumentation with change in mood, Solveig’s Song is heard, which Grieg would arrange again and four wind instruments, he drastically changed the sound of the last number of again for concert performances (including, the last time, for his Six Orchestral his incidental music when he incorporated it in the orchestral songs. Instead of a Songs). Another surprise follows: the space widens acoustically; behind the full orchestra plus choir it is now only harp and strings that accompany Solveig’s scenes a solo viola starts playing (replacing the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle), Lullaby – a quiet, yet touching, triumph of constant love. initially intoning a Halling and then a quick Springar, anticipating the dance Most of the orchestral songs are dominated by an elegiac, autumnal atmos- scene. Only then does the wedding music return, this time in a broader ver- phere – including the Romantic evening song From Monte Pincio, setting a text sion. This makes for a complex, intricately structured and musically highly by the Norwegian poet (who was later to receive the Nobel Prize in Litera- attractive movement, already hinting at the main features of Peer’s character – ture) Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. Not only did Grieg owe him several stage pro- Norwegian rooting, blind recklessness and melancholy reflection. jects, but also his enthusiasm for the national cause. In his poetic view from The Dance of the Mountain King’s Daughter from Act II, on the other the Pincian Hill, Bjørnson experiences the Roman goings-on as a contrast to hand, is one of the many erotic wooing dances performed by down-to-earth, Italy’s erstwhile greatness which, at some point in the future, he believes will magical or exotic women who seduce Peer. In this case it is the daughter of return. Accordingly, Grieg creates an attractive change of colour between the the demonic troll king, clad in green, who moves to a sturdy Norwegian dance, heroic tone of the evocation of antiquity and the bold dance music scurrying attractively orchestrated for piano, harp and xylophone. Grieg had planned along in the manner of a waltz from a Delibes ballet at the end of the two this music as an “absolute parody” and wanted “the audience to perceive it as verses. As From Monte Pincio, the two following songs are also arrangements of ear- out the simple tune (which is faintly reminiscent of the cor anglais in Act III lier piano songs. A Swan, after a poem by Ibsen, appears like a heavy barcarolle of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde) into an impassioned plaint. “It was like a vision. depicting the silent swan that only begins singing at the point of death. Grieg Even I was overwhelmed”, the composer commented after a performance of had extracted the poem Last Spring from a collection by Aasmund Olavson the work which he had directed himself. However, for the lullaby, arranged Vinje. “Vinje was a peasant by birth”, Grieg later explained to his American for (partially muted) strings, he returns to the longing tone of Solveig from biographer, Henry T Finck. “He attempted with his prose works to enlighten Peer Gynt. the Norwegian people: and these writings, together with his poems, gave Grieg had lived in Kristiania (today’s Oslo) for a good ten years from 1866 him a great national importance.” In Last Spring, however, Vinje took up the until early 1877, founded the first Norwegian Music Academy and, as the con- ancient symbolism of blossoming nature and a retrospective view on a fulfilled ductor of the Philharmonic Society, enlivened the city’s concert life by pre- life. Grieg set the slightly sentimental text with a rich string accompaniment, senting innovative programmes stretching from Baroque repertoire to con- towards the end bordering on a Wagnerian soundscape. temporary music. The violinist and glowing patriot Ole Bull, who introduced Of a more recent date than the previous songs was the setting of John Paul- Grieg to Norwegian folk music, proved to be an invaluable source of musical sen’s poem Henrik Wergeland, evoking the deeds, death and significance of the inspiration: a completely unused stock of melodies and tonal systems opened Norwegian activist and poet Henrik Arnold Wergeland (1808-1845). Werge- up before the young composer, coming to fruition for the first time in his land was a political polemicist and sympathiser of Norwegian language reform. Piano Concerto of 1868. Perhaps it was due to problems with the audience in He died of lung disease at the age of thirty-seven and has been celebrated by Kristiania as well as a need to be closer to the origins of these melodies which following generations as a guarantor of Norwegian independence, which had led Grieg and his wife Nina to travel to the West Norwegian countryside in not yet been achieved during his lifetime: “May the spirit of your deeds remain 1877. In Hardanger, between fjords and glaciers, they found lodgings in the with us forever! Norway’s guardian spirit, Henrik Wergeland!” – these are small town of Lofthus where Grieg composed his string quartet as well as the closing lines which Grieg, following the death tolls of the preceding bars, piano and vocal works – including the only original orchestral song, the ballad comments with a triumphant outburst. for baritone, Den Bergtekne (The Mountain Thrall). As with many works, grand designs had been made for the ballad; how- Inspiration in Hardanger ever, what remained from the planned large-scale choral piece was a short, Although Edvard Grieg consistently fought the accusation of “Norwegianising” but intensive, work, abruptly opening with a diminished chord and only then in his music, he – particularly during less creative periods – made the most of presenting the main theme in the horn. It is the motif of wandering aimlessly his position as a Norwegian national composer. His Six Orchestral Songs already (Andante) which leads the narrator through dark woods and into the arms reveal a solemn mood and an emotive idealisation of the patriotic Wergeland.