Grieg Peer Gynt - Complete Incidental Music
Grieg’s masterpiece, recorded complete – and at bargain price
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Edvard Grieg
Genre:
Orchestral
Label: Naxos
Magazine Review Date: 3/2009
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
Stereo
DDD
Catalogue Number: 8570871/2

Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Peer Gynt |
Edvard Grieg, Composer
Bjarte Engeset, Conductor Edvard Grieg, Composer Malmö Chamber Choir Malmö Symphony Orchestra |
Before a southern convent (Foran sydens kloster) |
Edvard Grieg, Composer
Bjarte Engeset, Conductor Edvard Grieg, Composer Malmö Chamber Choir Malmö Symphony Orchestra |
Bergljot |
Edvard Grieg, Composer
Bjarte Engeset, Conductor Edvard Grieg, Composer Malmö Symphony Orchestra |
Author: Mike Ashman
Engeset and his Swedish players and Norwegian actors and singers provide the most sensible mix of spoken word and music yet arrived at for home listening and have more fun with this music in the studio than anyone since Masur or Beecham. Try Itziar Galdos’s cheeky Anitra, spry in both dialogue and song with an infectious laugh, or the brilliant idea to cast the Herd Girls (Grieg’s very own Rhinedaughtersteasing- Alberich scene) with folk rather than concert singers. Actors Hans Jakob Sand (Peer) and Erik Hijvu (pretty much every other male including the Mountain King) are not only richly delivered characters but integrate the play seamlessly with the music-making. Such sheer theatricality outpoints the pioneering Neeme Järvi set (DG, 8/05) and the more recent Bergen performance (BIS, A/05). Naxos’s website provides good texts and translations. Indeed, with a bonus of nigh on half an hour of superior Grieg Bjørnson settings, the new release leapfrogs all competition except, perhaps, the Guillaume Tourniaire (Aeon, A/05), neither version of which, however, is in Norwegian.
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