Music Director
Edvard Grieg (1843-1907):
Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16
Norwegian composer, pianist and conductor Edvard Grieg's maternal grandfather was adopted as a child by Bishop Hagerup of Trondheim, and grew up to be the Provincial Governor named Hagerup. Grieg's mother Gesine was trained as a musician in Hamburg and became an accomplished pianist in Beisen. In 1836, she married the British consul Alexander Grieg, of Scottish descent, who played in the orchestra of the Bergen Harmonic Society.
The Grieg's had five children, the fourth being Edvard Grieg. Grieg was first taught piano by his mother. On the advice of Ole Bull (1810-1880), the violinist who was one of Norway's first international superstars, Edvard went to study at the Leipzig Conservatory. Grieg eventually studied at the school with E. F. Wenzel, who had been a close friend of Robert Schumann. Grieg became enamored of Schumann's music. Grieg studied piano with Moscheles, and harmony and counterpoint with E. F. Richter, Robert Papperitz, and Moritz Hauptmann.
Carl Reinecke was Grieg's composition teacher. Reinecke instructed Grieg to compose a string quartet and an overture. Grieg didn't know much about formal organization, but he was able to attend Leipzig's Gewandhaus concerts.
Grieg was present at some of the Leipzig performances of Richard Wagner's opera Tannhauser. But in 1860, Grieg succumbed to pleurisy, an illness which plagued him throughout his life. He spent a summer recuperating in Norway, but returned to complete his conservatory studies in 1862.
Grieg returned to his native Bergen and began playing in concerts that included the music of Schumann and himself. The following year, Grieg went to Copenhagen Denmark, the cultural center of all of Scandinavia, because he felt he needed more training. Niels Gade, the musical leader of the Romantic movement in Scandinavia had been a friend of both Schumann and Mendelssohn. Gade received Grieg cordially, but didn't expect much because there had not been any great composers from Norway in the past. Gade wanted Grieg to compose a symphony, a form with which Grieg did not feel comfortable.
In the autumn of 1864, Grieg met Rikard Nordaak, a composer who was the best hope of the Norwegian nationalists for the creation of a Norwegian musical style. After hearing some of Nordaak's music, Grieg was dedicated to the Romantic nationalism movement which sought to create a distinctively Norwegian style.
Grieg composed his one and only Piano Concerto in A minor in 1868 at the age of 24. The three movement concerto has been compared to the Piano concerto of Robert Schumann. Both works are in A minor, and both open with an opening descending flourish on the piano.
The opening flourish is also based on the motif of a falling minor second followed by a falling major third, a pattern which occurs in Norwegian folk music. Grieg became Norway's best-known composer because he superimposed Romantic musical forms with aspects of Norwegian folk culture.
The concerto was first performed on April 3, 1869 in Copenhagen. The conductor was Holger Simon Paulli. Grieg was in Chrisliania (Oslo) attending to an orchestral commitment, but the concert was heard by Neils Gade, and the pianist Anton Rubenstein, who provided the piano for the performance.
Notes by Beth Bergman Fisher