Apart from the ever-popular Piano Concerto there seems little room in today's concert programmes for Grieg's gently nostalgic, beautifully crafted output. Even on record he is under-represented.
I hope that this new issue will be heard by as wide an audience as possible, for it should give much pleasure to those who need some respite from those large symphonic works which now dominate our concert life.
When RL discussed the Jansons/NFK record noted above—it omits the Symphonic Dances and thus only contains about half the material of the new issue—he suggested that it could ''stand alongside the existing competition without in any way displacing it''. Just so, and it is instructive to compare Janson's good, straightforward performances with the much more sensitive and subtle Jarvi who, while he may sometimes mould a phrase in an unexpected way, continually illuminates the music, keeping it fresh and spontaneous without distorting either its melodic line or its natural rhythms. Indeed, throughout both the Norwegian Dances and the Symphonic Dances Jarvi keeps rhythms light and airy so that there's never a hint of the stodginess which can afflict lesser performances of these delightful pieces. In the Lyric Suite Jarvi digs a little deeper to find music of real passion: he includes the extra ''Bell ringing'' movement as the second piece, playing it slowly so that it sounds startlingly forward-looking for 1891. We are thus reminded that Grieg's harmonic innovations had an important influence on later composers.
The Gothenburg orchestra responds to its Estonian chief conductor with some excellent playing, though there is just occasionally a touch of shrillness in the string sound. In fact the recording is uncompromisingly wide in its dynamic range, very clear and responsive to detail even at the ends of two long LP sides. On Compact Disc the sound has marginally more presence, though there remains the slight impression of rawness.'