Edvard Grieg - Holberg Suite; Music for strings (Ole Kristian Ruud)

Information

Composer: Edvard Grieg

1. From Holberg's Time, suite in olden style, Op. 40: I. Prelude
2. From Holberg's Time, suite in olden style, Op. 40: II. Sarabande
3. From Holberg's Time, suite in olden style, Op. 40: III. Gavotte
4. From Holberg's Time, suite in olden style, Op. 40: IV. Air
5. From Holberg's Time, suite in olden style, Op. 40: V. Rigaudon
6. Elegiac Melodies, Op. 34: I. The Wounded Heart
7. Elegiac Melodies, Op. 34: II. Last Spring
8. Melodies, Op. 53: I. Norwegian
9. Melodies, Op. 53: II. The First Meeting
10. Nordic Melodies, Op. 63: I. Popular Song
11. Nordic Melodies, Op. 63: II. Cow Keepers' Tune & Country Dance
12. Lyric Pieces, Op. 68: I. Evening in the Mountains
13. Lyric Pieces, Op. 68: II. At the Cradle

Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra
Ole Kristian Ruud, conductor
Date: 2005
Label: BIS
http://bis.se/conductors/ruud-ole-kristian/grieg-holberg-suite

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Review

Whereas in his Peer Gynt music (1876) Grieg anticipated later Romantic (even early Modernist) trends in accompanying the spoken voice, in From Holberg’s Time(1884/85) he stole a march on Strauss, Respighi and Stravinsky in his use of neo-classical models. The Suite he produced had all the French-designated movements that Bach would have recognised – there’s even a bagpipe-imitating Musette tucked away in the Gavotte.

Like all the pieces on this disc, the Holberg Suite was originally for piano. There’s a story that Grieg reworked this private homage to playwright Ludwik Holberg into a public concert work because he was bored with the choral tribute that had been expected from him and frightened he’d catch his death conducting its open-air premiere.

Bergen musicians have lived with these scores since their creation and all the performances here, unfussily recorded in the rich, woody acoustic of the city’s Grieg Halle in June 2004, have a relaxed, idiomatic naturalness in their virtuosity. Ruud goes for the romantic and the wistful in the Holberg music, letting the restraint that was noticeable in his recent Peer Gynt set give an appropriate period glaze to Grieg’s baroquerie. It’s not the only way – the late Iona Brown with her Norwegian Chamber Orchestra (Virgin) makes it a really Baroque-sounding work with ‘modern’ harmonies and melody.

Ruud’s commitment, however, is preferable to the let’s-not-enjoy-ourselves-too-much caution of famous Nordic competitors like Jansons and Järvi. He also does well by each of the four other pairs of transcriptions, especially the substantial Popular Song, Op 63 No 1, almost a tone-poem in its own right. Although this programme is a natural round-up to this BIS/Bergen Grieg cycle, don’t play it all at once – use the slighter pieces as the sweetmeats to other music they were intended to be.

-- Mike Ashman, Gramophone

More reviews:

BBC Music Magazine  PERFORMANCE: **** / SOUND: ****

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2006/Feb06/Grieg_Holberg_BISSACD1491.htm
http://www.classicstoday.com/review/review-12290/

http://www.allmusic.com/album/grieg-holberg-suite-mw0001398078

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Edvard Grieg (15 June 1843, Bergen – 4 September 1907, Bergen) was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is widely considered one of the leading Romantic era composers, and his music is part of the standard classical repertoire worldwide. His use and development of Norwegian folk music in his own compositions put the music of Norway in the international spectrum. He is the most celebrated person from the city of Bergen, with numerous statues depicting his image, and many cultural entities named after him
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edvard_Grieg

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Ole Kristian Ruud (born 2 October 1958, Lillestrøm) is a Norwegian conductor. He studied clarinet with Richard Kjelstrup at the Norwegian Academy of Music, and studied conducting at the Sibelius Academy. Ruud was principal conductor of the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, Norrköping Symphony Orchestra and Stavanger Symphony Orchestra. He has been professor of conducting at the Norwegian Academy of Music since 1999. In 2005, he completed recording the complete orchestral works of Grieg with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, for BIS records.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ole_Kristian_Ruud

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