Unicorn-Kanchana have already put us in their debt with the complete Peer Gynt music (RHS361-2, 4/79) and a recording of the fragments from Grieg's Olav Trygvason and Landkjenning (RHS364, 3/80) which comes from the same year as his Op. 22. Indeed, they were both first performed on the very same day. Grieg composed his incidental music for Sigurd Jorsalfar (''Sigurd the Crusader'') in 1872 for a production of Bjornson's historical drama in Christiana (as Oslo was then known), though neither he nor the dramatist was particularly satisfied with it. The score comprised five movements in all (three instrumental pieces and two songs) from which Grieg drew the familiar suite, but there were additional sections as well which are unfamiliar even to most Grieg enthusiasts: indeed, the Prelude, the horn calls from Act 2 and ''The king's ballad'' are all new to record and, more importantly, so is the moving Funeral March in memory of Rikard Nordraak which is given here in Halvorsen's orchestral transcription. And even though it does not claim to be a first recording Den Bergtekne (''The mountain spell'') for baritone, strings and two horns is something of a rarity—and, to be truthful, I can't recall an earlier LP recording in the UK catalogues.
The mountain spell (or ''thrall'', as it is sometimes translated) is somewhat later than Sigurd Jorsalfar and was one of Grieg's favourite pieces. It is based on a ballad from Landstad's collection that is familiar to us through Keat's poem La belle dame sans merci and he spoke of it to Frantz Beyer in 1885 as ''possibly one of the few good deeds of my life''. It is a song of great beauty and is alone worth the price of the record. Apart from anything else, it is beautifully laid out for horns and strings, and reminds one of the justice of John Horton's assertion that Grieg wrote much better for strings and a few solo instruments than for full orchestra. Indeed, much of the scoring in Sigurd Jorsalfar is far from subtle and the best of it is undoubtedly to be found in the three familiar orchestral movements. None of the Grieg authorities speak with great enthusiasm of Sigurd Jorsalfar itself and the 'new' movements recorded here are not so rewarding as the unfamiliar material that these artists gave us from Peer Gynt. The Interlude to Act 3 is in fact hardly worth committing to record since it uses much the same material as the famous Homage March, and the two vocal numbers, ''The Norseman'' and ''The King's Ballad'', are a little square. All the same, this is of far more interest than the other Bjornson collaboration of these early years, Olav Trygvason, and although there are naive touches Grieg is always endearing.
The Oslo Philharmonic Chorus give a spirited account of themselves, as do the LSO, who play sensitively for Per Dreier. Kare Bjorkoy is an excellent soloist with well-focused tone and is particularly impressive in Den Bergtekne. The eloquent Funeral March Grieg composed for Nordraak whom he had left on his sickbed in Berlin only to learn of his death some months later, is both original and deeply felt, and it again enhances the value of this issue. The recording is very good indeed: detail is well defined, the texture clean and well ventilated, and the perspective is agreeably natural. Both the bottom and top end of the aural spectrum are impressive and my only, albeit marginal, criticism is that the middle range could perhaps be richer in sonority. This is obviously a valuable and enterprising issue that will enjoy wide appeal.'