Grieg Songs
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Edvard Grieg
Label: Naxos
Magazine Review Date: 5/1997
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 70
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 8 553781
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| (5) Songs, Movement: No. 1, Hope (Et håb) |
Edvard Grieg, Composer
Bodil Arnesen, Soprano Edvard Grieg, Composer Erling Eriksen, Piano |
| (5) Songs, Movement: No. 2, I walked one balmy summer eve (Jeg reiste eommkvaeld) |
Edvard Grieg, Composer
Bodil Arnesen, Soprano Edvard Grieg, Composer Erling Eriksen, Piano |
| (5) Songs, Movement: No. 4, With a primrose (Med en primulaveris) |
Edvard Grieg, Composer
Bodil Arnesen, Soprano Edvard Grieg, Composer Erling Eriksen, Piano |
| Melodies of the Heart, Movement: No. 1, Two brown eyes (To brune øjne) |
Edvard Grieg, Composer
Bodil Arnesen, Soprano Edvard Grieg, Composer Erling Eriksen, Piano |
| Melodies of the Heart, Movement: No. 3, I love but thee (Jeg elsker dig) |
Edvard Grieg, Composer
Bodil Arnesen, Soprano Edvard Grieg, Composer Erling Eriksen, Piano |
| (4) Songs |
Edvard Grieg, Composer
Bodil Arnesen, Soprano Edvard Grieg, Composer Erling Eriksen, Piano |
| (The) Princess (Prinsessen) |
Edvard Grieg, Composer
Bodil Arnesen, Soprano Edvard Grieg, Composer Erling Eriksen, Piano |
| (6) Songs, Movement: No. 1, From Monte Pincio (Fra Monte Pincio) |
Edvard Grieg, Composer
Bodil Arnesen, Soprano Edvard Grieg, Composer Erling Eriksen, Piano |
| (6) Songs, Movement: No. 3, Upon a grassy hillside (I liden højt deroppe) |
Edvard Grieg, Composer
Bodil Arnesen, Soprano Edvard Grieg, Composer Erling Eriksen, Piano |
| Peer Gynt, Movement: Solvejg's Song |
Edvard Grieg, Composer
Bodil Arnesen, Soprano Edvard Grieg, Composer Erling Eriksen, Piano |
| Peer Gynt, Movement: Solvejg's Cradle Song. |
Edvard Grieg, Composer
Bodil Arnesen, Soprano Edvard Grieg, Composer Erling Eriksen, Piano |
| (6) Songs |
Edvard Grieg, Composer
Bodil Arnesen, Soprano Edvard Grieg, Composer Erling Eriksen, Piano |
| (4) Songs, Movement: No. 1, Margaret's Cradle Song (Margretes vuggesang) |
Edvard Grieg, Composer
Bodil Arnesen, Soprano Edvard Grieg, Composer Erling Eriksen, Piano |
| (12) Songs, Movement: No. 2, Last Spring (Våren) |
Edvard Grieg, Composer
Bodil Arnesen, Soprano Edvard Grieg, Composer Erling Eriksen, Piano |
| (12) Songs, Movement: No. 9, At Rondane (Ved Rundarne) |
Edvard Grieg, Composer
Bodil Arnesen, Soprano Edvard Grieg, Composer Erling Eriksen, Piano |
| (6) Elegiac Songs, Movement: To her II (Til en II) |
Edvard Grieg, Composer
Bodil Arnesen, Soprano Edvard Grieg, Composer Erling Eriksen, Piano |
| (6) Songs, Movement: No. 2, A swan (En svane) |
Edvard Grieg, Composer
Bodil Arnesen, Soprano Edvard Grieg, Composer Erling Eriksen, Piano |
| (6) Songs, Movement: No. 6, A bird-song (En fugelvise) |
Edvard Grieg, Composer
Bodil Arnesen, Soprano Edvard Grieg, Composer Erling Eriksen, Piano |
| (6) Songs, Movement: No. 6, Spring showers (Forårsregn) |
Edvard Grieg, Composer
Bodil Arnesen, Soprano Edvard Grieg, Composer Erling Eriksen, Piano |
| (5) Songs, Movement: No. 3, On the Water (Mens jeg venter) |
Edvard Grieg, Composer
Bodil Arnesen, Soprano Edvard Grieg, Composer Erling Eriksen, Piano |
Author:
Though Anne Sofie von Otter’s Gramophone Award-winning disc remains the clear choice for a single record devoted to Grieg’s songs, this new one runs it close. Bodil Arnesen is a young lyric soprano with just the right freshness for these open-air songs (as so many of them are) of spring and hope. She is entirely firm, has a healthy glow on the upper notes, shows a nice feeling for nuance, and knows how to make the voice smile. Some limitation is felt in the few darker songs, such as the second of Op. 48, “Dareinst, Gedanke mein”, which von Otter takes at a slower pace, introducing an unearthly pallor into the tone, and providing a more weighty reminder of the link back to Schubert’s Wanderers Nachtlied and forward to Strauss’s Ruhe, meine Seele. Then in the next song, “Lauf der Welt”, von Otter has a style at once bolder and more confiding: she communicates as though to a larger audience and so on a bigger scale, enlarging what one might call the vocal gestures of intimacy to match. Yet for home-listening, especially if you are playing at a good volume, I’m not sure that such large expressiveness isn’t just a little overwhelming: certainly the return, from that, to the soprano’s relatively miniaturist style is no hardship.
The choice of songs is fine, so too the programming, in which the sequence (not chronological) is sensible and satisfying. For a proper conspectus of Grieg’s songs it is necessary to have the Haugtussa cycle, which von Otter includes and Arnesen does not; there is compensation, however, in the charming Bjornson settings (Op. 21), the two songs of Solveig, and others such as The Princess and “With a primrose” which are among the best of all. Erling Eriksen accompanies sympathetically, the balance of voice and piano is well judged and the booklet provides useful and attractive companionship.'
The choice of songs is fine, so too the programming, in which the sequence (not chronological) is sensible and satisfying. For a proper conspectus of Grieg’s songs it is necessary to have the Haugtussa cycle, which von Otter includes and Arnesen does not; there is compensation, however, in the charming Bjornson settings (Op. 21), the two songs of Solveig, and others such as The Princess and “With a primrose” which are among the best of all. Erling Eriksen accompanies sympathetically, the balance of voice and piano is well judged and the booklet provides useful and attractive companionship.'
Grieg Songs
Discover the world's largest classical music catalogue with Presto Music.
Gramophone Digital Club
- Digital Edition
- Digital Archive
- Reviews Database
- Full website access
From £8.75 / month
Subscribe
Gramophone Full Club
- Print Edition
- Digital Edition
- Digital Archive
- Reviews Database
- Full website access
From £11.00 / month
Subscribe
If you are a library, university or other organisation that would be interested in an institutional subscription to Gramophone please click here for further information.