The important item here is the complete set of the Op 33 songs. Without wanting to dismiss the very real virtues of Monica Groop’s singing, the prime value of her complete series of Grieg’s songs has been the opportunity to investigate off the beaten track. Only the second song of the Op 33 set, Våren (‘Last Spring’), has had many takers – Schwarzkopf and Tauber among them. The rest are lucky to have a single recording in the catalogue, if that.

Grieg had been recovering from the deaths of his parents and was going through a bad patch in his marriage when he set 12 poems by AO Vinje for his Op 33 set, hence their preoccupation with darker themes of mortality and mankind. Groop does well by them, making full use of her deep mezzo colouring. Her singing is beautiful, sympathetic, typically bringing a sense of calm and understanding to ‘The Spring’ (‘Våren’) and stretching to the weightier seriousness needed for a song such as ‘First Things’ (‘Det fyrste’). What is missing is the shock of pain that sends an undercurrent through songs like ‘The Wounded Heart’ (‘Den Saerde’) or ‘On Friendship’ (‘Et Vennestykke’).

This fourth volume of the series finds Groop teaming up for the first time with accompanist Roger Vignoles. They prove to be well paired, as both like to let the music flow naturally. This puts them in the opposite corner to Anne Sofie von Otter and Bengt Forsberg, whose award-winning Grieg recital (DG, 6/93) comes with their personalities stamped on every bar.

Where they are in competition (only three songs here), Von Otter and Forsberg are instantly memorable, achieving lift-off with a tremendous sense of elation in ‘Hope’ (‘Et Håb’) from the Op 26 set, albeit at the expense of some pulling-around of the tempo from the pianist. There are people who are resistant to the Swedish couple’s bold way with Grieg and for them the more traditional approach of Groop and Vignoles will be preferable.

This volume also includes a few appealing discoveries among the songs without opus numbers. The recording quality is first-rate.