This disc makes for a neat budget companion to the recommendable BIS release with almost identical repertoire reviewed in March. Here a younger and smaller Norwegian ensemble look at the Holberg Suite with a light, almost period approach – ‘period’ 18th-century, that is – eschewing weighty Romantic melancholy in favour of a constant evocation of the music’s French Baroque roots and uncovering how Grieg (once more) drew on Norwegian folk models to make up the dance elements in his Suite.

The Holberg music is most collectable, given the approach taken; it has a winningly ‘live’ feel, if not the last degree of pinpoint ensemble. Of especial merit among the accompanying pieces are moving renderings of the familiar Elegiac Melody ‘Last Spring’ and the large-scale Nordic Melody ‘In Folk Style’, a mini tone-poem in its own right and proof, if needed, that Grieg’s miniatures were far from the ‘bonbons stuffed with snow’ that Stravinsky (enviously?) called them. Ending with ‘The Death of Åse’ from Peer Gynt is a neat idea, but the performance is rather short-breathed. The recording quality is first-rate.