GRIEG: Songs

Arnesen, Bodil;
Eriksen, Erling Ragnar

8.553781

Grieg himself believed that the lack of interest in his songs outside Scandinavia was due to the relationship between the public or the singer and the text itself, or, more precisely, to problems arising from the translation of the Norwegian and Danish texts he used. Apart from the first two collections, Four Songs, Opus 2, and Six Poems, Opus 4, nearly all his songs are settings of texts in these languages. Only once, later in life, did he turn again to German poetry, namely in Six Songs, Opus 48. • Grieg wrote, in all, more than 180 songs. Apart from the first ones, which may be regarded as apprentice attempts at the German Lied, nearly all belong to the Nordic tradition of song, a style that Grieg was instrumental in developing. Nordic song is characterized by strophic or varied strophic settings, with a melodic treatment that has its ideal in folk-song, which in its use of declamation and in its accompaniment has the primary purpose of expressing the intentions of the poet, as perceived by the composer.

CD

Muzyka klasyczna

Naxos

06-01-1997

730099478120