The magic of a "time machine" brings Percy Grainger's original performance back to life in this modern surround-sound recording with the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Rolf Gupta. Edvard Grieg himself bears witness to the validity and authenticity of Grainger's interpretation through his own enthusiastic endorsement: "I had to become sixty-four years old to hear Norwegian piano music interpreted so understandingly and brilliantly. He breaks new ground for himself, for me, and for Norway. And then this enchanting, profound, serious, and childlike naturalness! What a joy to gain a young friend with such qualities!"
In 2007, conductor Rolf Gupta gave the first Norwegian performance of Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto in A minor with the legendary Australian pianist Percy Grainger (1882-1961) as the posthumous soloist. On this recording, the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra accompanies Grainger's original and controversial interpretation of the concerto. In addition, the violinist Øyvind Bjorå and pianolist Rex Lawson perform Grieg's Violin Sonata in C minor. The recording also includes a handful of Grieg's Lyric Pieces, performed by the composer himself. Astonishingly, these performances have not been available to the public until now.
Two different instruments have facilitated Grainger's and Grieg's encounters with the KSO/Gupta in modern times. Grainger plays on a form of musical time machine, the Duo-Art reproducing piano, which is something like an analogue predecessor of the computer, powered by an electric suction pump, and controlled automatically by perforated rolls of paper. Grieg, on the other hand, has been restored to life by means of a foot-pedalled pianola, played by Rex Lawson. For this recording, both instruments were fitted in front of a Steinway concert grand piano and re-performed the playing of Grainger in 1921 and Grieg in 1906.
Edvard Grieg's own performances of his pieces come alive via piano roll transcriptions, as does
a 1921 performance of his classic Piano Concerto by Percy Grainger.
Laugh at me if you must (and I won't blame you, honestly), but I dragged my parents to see
Song of Norway, the infamously bad biopic about Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg,
when I was a very young kid. We were living in a suburb of Seattle then which was pretty
much farmland back in those days, and I lived for my school library's weekly delivery of the
Sunday New York Times. I would pore over each week's Arts and Leisure section,
trying to assimilate all that culture via some sort of osmosis. I still remember seeing a full
page ad for Song of Norway, with star Florence Henderson surrounded by children,
proclaiming it the putative heir to The Sound of Music and claiming its advance ticket
sales were the largest in history. And so I convinced my rather reluctant mother and father
to take me to a downtown Seattle theater, where to my young eyes and ears at least, the
film offered a reasonably entertaining couple of hours with some magnificent scenery and
gorgeous music. I soon picked up the original soundtrack recording (if you're noticing an
almost epically geek pattern to my childhood by now, you're not far off the mark) and
became better acquainted with at least the basis of Grieg's music (his compositions were
adapted into popular operetta mode by Forrest and Wright for this hoary work which had
actually been a Broadway hit almost 30 years before it made it to film).
It wasn't too long afterward that I started studying Grieg's music in earnest as I made my
way through my classical piano studies. I remember how surprised I was to actually see
how difficult some sections of Grieg's most famous piano composition, the A Minor
Concerto, really were, despite the piece often being decried by the intelligentsia
for being lachrymose and not especially technically demanding. (Let them try to play
five against two, I remember thinking at the time). Grieg's music has spoken to the
unwashed masses in a way that few relatively modern classical composers' works have, and
that may in and of itself spell its doom to the critics who insist a piece's validity and artistic
worth are only in direct proportion to how opaque it is. Grieg is anything but opaque, with
long, langorous melodies almost constantly on display, and, in his orchestral pieces, a
command of orchestration that puts him in the top tier of 19th century Romantic composers.
This new 2L Blu-ray audio release is interesting from at least an historical, if not an actual
interpretive, standpoint, as it contains piano roll performances by the composer himself, as
well as one of his favorite acolytes, British keyboard virtuoso Percy Grainger. Those brought
up with more contemporary 20th century performances of many of these pieces may find
these particular performances disconcerting (no pun intended), but they offer a window into
musicology, at least, that's really quite fascinating.
Edvard Grieg (1843-1907)
For those of you who are MIDI-philes and may have some familiarity with sequencing or
digital recording and editing programs, you may have noticed how the graphical interfaces
for these marvels of modern technology actually resemble, at least slightly, old piano rolls.
However in our modern computer age, editing the data that produces the music is as easy
as the click of a mouse. I was rather amused, if also somewhat alarmed, to read about
Grainger going after piano rolls with scissors and tapes in his efforts to properly correct and
edit his performances. That may account for at least a "smudge" or two that is easily heard
in the Concerto recording. What may actually bother more listeners is Grainger's
really odd phrasing, an approach that has a quasi-rubato feeling throughout the concerto's
three movements and makes for some unfamiliar territory in a piece that a lot of people
think they may have more or less memorized. Grainger will rush through a lyrical section,
and then linger over a note or two. This is evident from the very first, famous opening
phrase, the decending A minor inversions, which Grainger plays at oddly different tempi and
some unexpected tenuti. It may not add up to a "classic" interpretation of Grieg, but the
composer himself evidently loved it, and gave Grainger's work glowing reviews (though truth
be told, the piano roll for this particular performance of the Concerto was recorded in 1921,
fourteen years after Grieg's death). Who am I to argue with that?
Coming off a bit less strange are Grieg's own interpretations (from 1906, recorded via the
Pianola device, played back here by Rex Lawson) of several of his miniatures. The
composer's gift for beautiful, light melodies is fully on display in such pieces as Wedding
Day at Troldhaugen. These smaller pieces give Grieg the perfect palette on which to
paint his often wonderfully filigreed patterns, usually overlaying a basic, if always interesting
and well thought out, harmonic foundation. What's a bit unclear from the notes to this
recording is what exactly is the source data for Lawson's Pianola playback of the third
offering on the Blu-ray, Grieg's Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 3 in C Minor. This
haunting piece, which features the virtuoso violin playing of Oyvind Bjora, evidently did have
a Pianola "accompaniment" manufactured in the early 1900's, but the insert booklet does
not make it entirely clear if that's the version being heard here.
Edvard Grieg is still perhaps getting his due as one of the most lyrical of 19th century
composers. While these performances may strike Grieg aficionados as patently odd at
times, the chance to hear the composer himself playing his own work, as well as one of his
favorite interpreters, should more than offset any qualms about the artistic choices made by
these famous pianists.
As with most 2L releases, we're treated to both a Blu-ray, with three audio options, as well
as an accompanying SACD. 2L does not skimp on its recordings, and that love and devotion
are evident throughout all three of the Blu-ray's rather pristine sounding mixes. The Blu-ray
offers two DTS HD-MA mixes, a 7.1 at 24/96KHz and a 5.1 at 24/192kHz, as well as a
standard PCM 2.0 at 24/192kHz. The recording itself was made with a 352.8 kHz sampling
rate, in an audio format known as Digital eXtreme Definition, which preserves 8.4672 Mbit/s
per channel. That's a lot of numbers, but what it adds up to (no pun intended) is an
amazingly lifelike performance with abundant hall ambience. The listener is literally
surrounded by the orchestra, though I was a bit surprised to hear the piano playing through
all the surround channels rather than being focused front and center. I was also a bit
underwhelmed by the thinness of the piano sound in all but the Violin Concerto, something
that may have to do with the piano rolls themselves. I'm not sure if that ancient technology
was able to record with any real fidelity such things as attack and decay (though evidently
one of the editing tricks Grainger "cut and pasted" was a pronounced sostenuto).
The piano utilized was a concert Steinway, but it has little of the renowned Steinway
resonance and full spectrum, at least in the Concerto and the piano solos. Strangely, it
sounds just great on the Violin Sonata, but that is the one piece whose piano roll
provenance is not clearly explained in the liner notes. Conductor Rolf Gupta and the
Kristiansand Symphony do a remarkable job staying with Grainger's odd phrasing choices,
and both DTS mixes offer remarkable warmth and immersion. Grieg's lovely use of reeds
and winds is especially lyrical in this recording, wafting through the surround channels with
appealing directness.
The only real supplement, aside from a nicely informative insert booklet, is the accompanying
SACD. While there is a slight if noticeable drop in fidelity in comparison to the BD, especially
when played back via a standard CD player, it's less than you might expect. On my PS3, the
SACD performed remarkably well, with beautifully rendered instrumental forces and a nicely
immersive experience in the surround channels. I did notice a very slight diminution in the low
frequencies, but it's minor.
Count yourself lucky that you don't need to "experience" Song of Norway to get up
close and personal with not only Edvard Grieg's music, but his own piano playing. This is a
wonderful overview of some really historic performances. Yes, the interpretations are patently
odd at times, especially Grainger's, but they make for both a compelling listening experience as
well as a fascinating history lesson. 2L's attention to quality and detail once again shines
through marvelously in this release.
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