Holberg Suite Brasil
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557890 bk Grieg US 4/3/06 10:43 AM Page 4 Oslo Camerata Director: Stephan Barratt-Due GRIEG Oslo Camerata was established in 1998, and is now Ensemble in Residence at the renowned Barratt Due Institute of Music in Oslo. The orchestra consists of professional musicians. Selected students on the MA and BA courses, however, may also have the opportunity to take part in the orchestra’s projects. In recent years the Oslo Camerata has enjoyed great success in festivals and tours throughout Europe, India and Holberg Suite Brasil. Everywhere the freshness of their sound draws an enthusiastic response from audiences and critics. Their repertoire extends from baroque to contemporary music, with commissioned works from both young and established composers. Their TV-production of the Four Seasons by Vivaldi for Norwegian National Television, Melodies for String Orchestra was received with great acclaim. Oslo Camerata has its own concert series at the Old Masonic Lodge in Oslo, from Grieg’s time. From the very beginning they have worked with artists such as Truls Mørk, Henning Kraggerud, Ole Edvard Antonsen, Juhani Oslo Camerata • Stephan Barratt-Due Lagerspetz and Christian Lindberg. Stephan Barratt-Due, a third generation violinist in the Barratt-Due family, is the founder and leader of the orchestra. Together with violist Soon-Mi Chung and cellist Bjørn Solum he forms the core of the orchestra. Violin I Violin II Viola Stephan Barratt-Due Øyvind Bjorå Soon-Mi Chung Henrik Myreng Pål Magne Solbakk Johannes Rusten Anders K. Nilsson Lina Marie Årnes Ida Bryhn Catharina Chen Bård Monsen Terje Skomedal Camilla Kjøll Cello Jon Mehus Nils Thore Røsth Bjørn Solum Tiril Dørum Bengtsson Ole Eirik Ree Double bass Rolf Hoff Baltzersen 8.557890 4 557890 bk Grieg US 4/3/06 10:43 AM Page 2 Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) composer for string orchestra, the form in which it is strings of Two Lyric Pieces, Op. 68, is of the fourth and Music for String Orchestra now most familiar. Grieg here takes the form of the fifth of a set of six piano pieces, published in 1899. The Baroque suite, with its traditional French dance second of these is a lullaby, Bådnlåt. Edvard Grieg, the greatest of Norwegian composers, Norwegian, who fired him with ambition to seek movements, re-interpreted through the neoclassical The Two Nordic Melodies, Op. 63, are also known was descended on his mother’s side from a Norwegian inspiration in the folk-music of Norway. Nordraak was prism of his own time. in versions for piano. The first, I Folketonestil (In Folk provincial governor who had adopted the name of to die tragically young, at the age of 24. Grieg, however, For his Two Elegiac Melodies, Op. 34, Grieg Style), uses a melody by Fredrik Duc, the Norwegian- Hagerup from his adoptive father, the Bishop of continued to prepare himself for employment in arranged two songs from a set of twelve settings of Swedish ambassador to France, who had sent it to Trondheim. On his father’s side he was of Scottish Norway, first of all taking a long holiday which led him poems by Aasmund Olavson Vinje. Våren (Last Spring) Grieg. The second brings together Kulokk (Cow Call) ancestry. His great-grandfather, Alexander Greig, had to Rome, where he met the great Norwegian dramatist and Hjertessår (The Wounded Heart), published in and Stabbelåten (Peasant Dance), arranged from a set of left Scotland after the battle of Culloden, when the cause Henrik Ibsen. It was a concert arranged by Grieg in orchestral form in 1881, have won great popularity in 25 Norwegian folk-dances and folk-songs first of the Stuart claimants to the thrones of England and Christiania (Oslo) and given by him with his cousin and this form. The songs were also later arranged by Grieg published in 1870. Scotland was finally destroyed by the English army future wife Nina Hagerup and the violinist Wilhelmine for solo piano and for piano four hands. Åses død (Åse’s Death) is part of the music Grieg under its royal Hanoverian general. In Norway the Norman-Neruda that secured him a position in Norway The Two Melodies, Op. 53, Norsk (Norwegian) and wrote for Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt, which follows the Greigs became Griegs and during the nineteenth century and provided support for the projected Norwegian Det første møde (The First Meeting) for string orchestra activities of its picaresque hero in his various established themselves comfortably in their new Academy of Music, established in the following year, were published in 1891. These are also arrangements of adventures. The death of his mother Åse takes place at country, Edvard Grieg’s father and grandfather both 1867. earlier songs, The first of the pair is the twelfth of the the end of the third act, and the well-known excerpt having served as British consuls in Bergen. The period that followed saw Grieg’s struggle, with Vinje settings, Fyremål (My Goal), and the second an from Grieg’s score, included in the first of his two Peer The Grieg household provided a musical the backing of Liszt and the support of his friend, the arrangement of an 1870 setting of a poem by Bjørnson, Gynt Suites, follows that event, as Peer sets out on background for a child. Musicians visited the family and dramatist Bjørnson, to establish some sort of national Det første møde (The First Meeting). another journey. these visitors included the distinguished violinist Ole musical movement in Norway. He divided his time During the course of his life Grieg wrote a very Bull, who persuaded the Griegs to send their son Edvard between concert activities, on tour as conductor and large number of short piano pieces, published in a series Keith Anderson to Leipzig Conservatory, an institution he entered at the pianist, composition, and periods spent in enjoyment of of nine collections of Lyric Pieces. The arrangement for age of fifteen, there to benefit from the demands of a the Norwegian countryside. traditional German musical education. Grieg’s ambitions for Norwegian music were very In Leipzig not everything was to Grieg’s liking. He largely realised. At home he came to occupy a position objected to the dryness of normal piano instruction, of honour, and his collaboration with Bjørnson and based on the work of Czerny and Clementi, and was Ibsen further identified him with the culture of his able to change to a teacher who was able to instil in him homeland. He died in 1907, as he was about to a love of Schumann. He attended concerts by the undertake one more concert tour. For years he had famous Gewandhaus Orchestra that Mendelssohn had suffered from lung trouble, the result of an illness in his once directed and was present when Clara Schumann, student days. It was this that was to bring about his the composer’s widow, played her husband’s piano death at the age of 64. concerto there, and at performances of Wagner’s Acclaimed as the first writer of his generation after Tannhäuser. At the same time he was able to meet other Voltaire and as the Molière of the North, Ludwig musicians, including Arthur Sullivan. Holberg, a near contemporary of Johann Sebastian After a short period at home again in Norway, Bach, was born in Norway but spent most of his life in where he was unable to obtain a state pension, Grieg Denmark. A leading representative of the Scandinavian moved to Denmark. The capital, Copenhagen, was a Enlightenment, he wrote comedies and satires cultural centre for both countries, and here he had influenced by the French. Grieg’s From Holberg’s considerable encouragement from Niels Gade. The Time: Suite in the Olden Style was commissioned to principal influence that was to change his life came mark the bicentenary of Holberg’s birth. In five from a meeting with Rikard Nordraak, a young movements, originally for piano, it was arranged by the 8.557890 23 8.557890 557890 bk Grieg US 4/3/06 10:43 AM Page 2 Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) composer for string orchestra, the form in which it is strings of Two Lyric Pieces, Op. 68, is of the fourth and Music for String Orchestra now most familiar. Grieg here takes the form of the fifth of a set of six piano pieces, published in 1899. The Baroque suite, with its traditional French dance second of these is a lullaby, Bådnlåt. Edvard Grieg, the greatest of Norwegian composers, Norwegian, who fired him with ambition to seek movements, re-interpreted through the neoclassical The Two Nordic Melodies, Op. 63, are also known was descended on his mother’s side from a Norwegian inspiration in the folk-music of Norway. Nordraak was prism of his own time. in versions for piano. The first, I Folketonestil (In Folk provincial governor who had adopted the name of to die tragically young, at the age of 24. Grieg, however, For his Two Elegiac Melodies, Op. 34, Grieg Style), uses a melody by Fredrik Duc, the Norwegian- Hagerup from his adoptive father, the Bishop of continued to prepare himself for employment in arranged two songs from a set of twelve settings of Swedish ambassador to France, who had sent it to Trondheim. On his father’s side he was of Scottish Norway, first of all taking a long holiday which led him poems by Aasmund Olavson Vinje. Våren (Last Spring) Grieg. The second brings together Kulokk (Cow Call) ancestry. His great-grandfather, Alexander Greig, had to Rome, where he met the great Norwegian dramatist and Hjertessår (The Wounded Heart), published in and Stabbelåten (Peasant Dance), arranged from a set of left Scotland after the battle of Culloden, when the cause Henrik Ibsen.