Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Edvard Grieg

Grainger Plays Grieg Rare Footage Surfaces

This rare footage turned up online within the past week or so of Percy Grainger playing music by his friend, Edvard Grieg. Since it’s Father’s Day and I’ve got to be out the door to meet my stepdad for brunch, and since it also happens to be Grieg’s birthday, I thought it would be an easy post, and a fascinating one, if you should choose to follow the link.

If you are ever in the vicinity of White Plains, NY, I highly recommend a visit to the Percy Grainger Home & Studio, the house in which Grainger lived for 40 years. Be sure to contact them in advance, as the house is open only on certain days and by appointment.

I went into great detail about my own highly enjoyable visit on the last of April. If you missed it, hopefully this link will take you to the May 1 post, in which I share my impressions.

Happy birthday, Edvard Grieg!

IMAGES: (left) detail from screenshot of Grainger playing Grieg’s “To Spring,” from the Lyric Pieces, Op. 43; photo of Grieg inscribed to his friend, one of the many treasures on display at the Percy Grainger house

June 15, 2025
Carl Goldmark’s Rustic Wedding Symphony

I’ve always been a fan of Carl Goldmark’s “Rustic Wedding Symphony.” It’s always made me happy. Apparently, I’m in good company, as it also received the imprimatur of Johannes Brahms, Goldmark’s walking companion, who thought it the best thing the composer ever wrote.

This week on “Sweetness and Light,” the work will form the centerpiece at a June wedding.

The “Rustic Wedding Symphony” has been recorded a number of times, but you don’t really seem to hear it much anymore. We’ll enjoy a performance by the Utah Symphony conducted by Maurice Abravanel.

The work falls into five movements: “Wedding March,” “Bridal Song,” “Serenade,” “In the Garden,” and “Dance.” It’s unusual for me to devote so much of a “light music” program to a symphony, but really, it’s like serving up 40-minutes of smiles.

We’ll also have a party favor in the form of Edvard Grieg’s “Wedding Day at Troldhaugen,” from his delectable “Lyric Pieces” – Troldhaugen being the composer’s home outside Bergen, Norway. Peter Katin, who released all of Grieg’s “Lyric Pieces” over three discs, will be the pianist.

Nothing rustic about Charles-Marie Widor: for 63 years, Widor was organist at the Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris. We’ll conclude with the Toccata from his Symphony No. 5, a work frequently performed at ceremonial functions, whether they be related to Christmas, graduations, or – for our purpose – weddings. It’s been especially popular at royal weddings, so it’s apt that we hear it performed by Simon Preston on the organ of Westminster Abbey.

Say “I do” to “Sweetness and Light,” a program of music calculated to charm and to cheer, this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 PDT, exclusively on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Stream it, wherever you are, at the link:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

“Hungarian Wedding Procession,” Gustav Prucha, 1930

June 7, 2025
Norway’s Stage Halvorsen Grieg and Theater Music

If all the world’s a stage, then why not Norway? This week on “The Lost Chord,” I hope you’ll join me in vicariously treading the boards with incidental music by two of the country’s most prominent composers.

Following a lengthy apprenticeship as a violinist, in the course of which he performed in orchestras all over Europe, Johan Halvorsen (1864-1935) developed an interest in conducting. In 1893, the same year he was appointed principal conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic, he worked as conductor of the theater orchestra at Bergen’s National Stage. In 1899, he became conductor of the newly-opened National Theater in Kristiana, a post he would occupy for the next three decades, until his retirement in 1929.

Following his retirement, Halvorsen largely concentrated on writing symphonies and his popular Norwegian Rhapsodies. Until then, his work in the theater, understandably, brought many opportunities to write for the stage. In fact, he composed music for more than 30 plays.

One of those was “Askeladden,” or “The Ash Lad,” a children’s comedy, based on Norwegian folk tales. Askeladden is an unprepossessing young man who succeeds where others fail, generally winning the hand of a princess and half the kingdom. Halvorsen actually composed the music for this particular play in his retirement. In fact, it is his last orchestral score.

Norway’s best-known composer, of course, is Edvard Grieg (1843-1907). Grieg’s suite from the play “Sigurd Jorsalfar,” or “Sigurd the Crusader,” is actually rather famous, yet we seldom have an opportunity to hear the complete incidental music. Sigurd I, King of Norway, reigned from 1103 to 1130. His reign is regarded by historians as a golden age for medieval Norway.

Sigurd became the subject of a play by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, for which Grieg provided music in 1872. The familiar suite was given its premiere 20 years later. Bjornson’s play concerns the brothers, Sigurd and Øystein, joint rulers of 12th century Norway, and the beautiful Borghild, whose love for Øystein is unrequited, but who herself is loved by Sigurd. The composer does his best to lend a third dimension, or at least some pageantry, to the historical tableaux.

Your ticket is reserved for Norway, incidentally. I hope you’ll join me for “A-fjordable Theater,” on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – Saturday at 11:00 AM EST/8:00 AM PST

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

January 4, 2025
Edvard Grieg A Master’s Melancholy Lyricism

If Edvard Grieg and Mark Twain got into a knife fight, who would win? Twain, probably. But once Grieg sat down at the piano, there would be no contest. Did this guy ever write a bad note?

Celebrated as Norway’s greatest composer, Grieg embraced his native folk music, lovingly elevated it, and infused it with an intriguing delicacy, melancholy, and yes, lyricism. Like listening to a Nordic Schubert, you never know when a cloud will break across the fjords. Or perhaps, more to the point, a sunny jaunt across a field of wildflowers will be disrupted by an encounter with a troll.

The most common criticism leveled against Grieg is that he was essentially a miniaturist. You might as well attack Chopin for being a sloppy orchestrator.

From his letters, we know that Grieg himself was frustrated by his propensity for shorter works. “Nothing that I do satisfies me,” he wrote, “and though it seems to me that I have ideas, they neither soar nor take form when I proceed to the working out of something big.”

Claude Debussy was only too happy to kick him while he was down. He famously derided Grieg’s output as so many “pink bonbons filled with snow.” Yet it has been convincingly demonstrated that Debussy owed more than a little to his Norwegian colleague in the writing of his String Quartet in G minor and in some of his own piano miniatures. What is it about Grieg that so galled the Gauls?

Myself, I could listen to Grieg all day. In fact, I think I will.

Neeme Järvi conducts the four “Symphonic Dances.” I used the second of these as signature music for an overnight show, back when I was starting out in community radio.

Emil Gilels plays a selection of the “Lyric Pieces.” Gilels hedged when asked to make the recording, fearing that no one would buy it. Of course, it went on to become one of the great piano classics.

The husband-and-wife team of Augustin Dumay and Maria João Pires whip up a fair amount of unsuspected passion in the Violin Sonatas. Here’s the full album.

“The First Meeting,” sung by Barbara Bonney

Six Songs, Op. 48

“Solveig’s Song” from “Peer Gynt”

Arturo Benedetto Michelangeli shatters the stereotype of Grieg as “provincial” composer with this volcanic performance of the Piano Concerto in A minor:

PHOTO: Grieg is great! Happy birthday, master!

June 15, 2024
Goldmark’s Rustic Wedding Symphony on KWAX

I’ve always been a fan of Karl Goldmark’s “Rustic Wedding Symphony.” It’s always made me happy. Back when I had a live radio air shift, I used to program it every spring. Apparently, I’m in good company. It also received the imprimatur of Johannes Brahms, Goldmark’s walking companion, who thought it the best thing the composer ever wrote.

This week on “Sweetness and Light,” the work will form the centerpiece at a June wedding.

The “Rustic Wedding Symphony” has been recorded a number of times, but you don’t really seem to hear it much anymore. We’ll enjoy a performance by the Utah Symphony conducted by Maurice Abravanel.

The work falls into five movements: “Wedding March,” “Bridal Song,” “Serenade,” “In the Garden,” and “Dance.” It’s unusual for me to devote so much of a “light music” program to a symphony, but really, it’s like serving up 40-minutes of smiles.

We’ll also have a party favor in the form of Edvard Grieg’s “Wedding Day at Troldhaugen,” from his delectable “Lyric Pieces” – Troldhaugen being the composer’s home outside Bergen, Norway. Peter Katin, who released all of Grieg’s “Lyric Pieces” over three discs, will be the pianist.

Nothing rustic about Charles-Marie Widor: for 63 years, Widor was organist at the Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris. We’ll conclude with the Toccata from his Symphony No. 5, a work frequently performed at ceremonial functions, whether they be related to Christmas, graduations, or – for our purpose – weddings. It’s been especially popular at royal weddings, so it’s apt that we hear it performed by Simon Preston on the organ of Westminster Abbey.

Say “I do” to “Sweetness and Light,” a program of music calculated to charm and to cheer, this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 PDT, exclusively on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Stream it, wherever you are, at the link:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

Pieter Brueghel the Younger, “Wedding Dance in a Barn” (c. 1616)

June 8, 2024

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