Space does not permit a detailed account of the genesis of this 'complete' music for Peer Gynt. Suffice to say that the conductor Per Dreier has drawn on all the music Grieg wrote at different times for three productions of Ibsen's play. No production included all the 32 numbers recorded: for instance Robert Henriques's scoring of three of the familiar Norwegian Dances, Op. 35 was unique to the Copenhagen production of 1886, and the ''Scene on the Upturned Boat'' only survived in the form of orchestral parts for the 1876 premiere.
The impression left after listening to these CDs is that the dozen or so numbers we normally hear in the Peer Gynt suites give a quite inadequate picture of Grieg's score as a whole, which has many dramatic and exciting passages reminiscent of Berlioz or even Wagner, and where the composer's reputation as a lightweight miniaturist is shown to be quite unfounded. Even in the familiar ''Hall of the Mountain King'' the presence of the chorus heightens the effect to a degree; and there is some exquisite writing for the four soloists: the last number of all, where the now elderly Solveig takes back the errant Peer is particularly poignant.
All the soloists are more than adequate and the chorus is spirited and committed. I wouldn't say that Per Dreier is the most imaginative of Grieg conductors: sometimes his tempos are a little slow and he tends to make 'expressive' points by inserting commas in the music and holding up its natural ebb and flow. But these are not serious drawbacks; in general the performance is very good and the 1978 recording (not digitally remastered) has come up very well in the CD transfer.'