Grieg: Piano Music, Vol. 1

Edvard Grieg (Composer), Einar Steen-Nökleberg (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Einar Steen-Nökleberg
• Composer: Edvard Grieg
• Audio CD (October 24, 1995)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Naxos
• ASIN: B0000013ZY
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #301,030 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Piano Sonata is Amazing!, February 10, 2000

By 

Boaz Fux - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Grieg: Piano Music, Vol. 1 (Audio CD)

And I will repeat myself: The Piano Sonata is Amazing! I can't understand why this amazing piano piece, from all of grieg's piano music, is so forgotten. Each and each movement is so unique with it's rhythems, the way Grieg spreads all over the keyboard (mainly in the second and fourth movement), and much more. Each movement carries you into different worlds and moods. I bought this performance mainly because of the price, and because I wanted a reliable performance of the sonata (Einar Steen-Nökleberg is the editor of Greig's piano music for Henle), unlike the perfrmance of Glenn Gould that I already have, which is also great but not so accurate, and I didn't regret! This is a recommended purchase for everyone interested in great and not so well known Classical Music (My piano teacher, for example, didn't know this sonata, until I lent her the Glenn Gould performance).

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Generally strong performances of fine, sometimes glorious, music, February 28, 2009

By 

G.D. (Norway) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Grieg: Piano Music, Vol. 1 (Audio CD)

The complete piano music of Edvard Grieg is one of those extremely commendable projects undertaken by Naxos (and it is almost a surprise to realize how much there is of it), and it was an excellent choice to give it to the Grieg expert Einar Steen-Nřkleberg whose playing throughout the series is consistently fine (if not quite in the league of, say, Andsnes or Gilels in those surprisingly few works where competing alternatives are readily available). Most of the works are colorful miniatures, and Grieg's impressive ability to create harmonic color and inventive melodies only rarely flags.

The first volume includes his early and surprisingly fine sonata - one of only two large-scale works Grieg wrote for the solo piano. True, he sometimes seem to struggle with the form, but the inventive colorations and memorability of his ideas make up for any reservations in that respect. The op. 1 pieces frankly are less interesting (but still worth a listen), and the same goes for the op. 6 humoresques (and the short and slight Sirens' enticement). The funeral march - more famous in its orchestral version - is, however, close to being a minor masterpiece, and the same goes for the piano arrangement of "Jeg elsker dig", one of his most famous and delightful songs.

The "Stemninger" op. 73 is his last published piano collection (thus post-dating his series of Lyrical Pieces), and has often been thought of as "difficult". They turn out, however, to be quite on par with the lyrical pieces - delightful, atmospheric works - although the harmonic and tonal language is subtly more advanced and austere than in the more famous earlier works. Steen-Nřkleberg plays everything with a strong sense of poetry and color, although I sometimes miss a sharper focus on rhythm. The Naxos sound is fine, and this is, again, a very welcome release. Recommended.