Edvard Grieg 4 Album Leaves op 28 With score

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-Composer: Edvard Hagerup Grieg (15 June 1843 – 4 September 1907) • -Performer: Gerhard Oppitz (Piano) • 4 Album Leaves for Piano, op. 28, written in 1864-1878 • 00:00 - I. Allegro con moto • 02:14 - II. Allegretto espressivo • 05:40 - III. Vivace • 08:43 - IV. Andantino serioso • From Edvard Grieg's rather large body of works for piano, only a handful of works have ever achieved any kind of renown at all (a few of the Lyric Pieces are somewhat famous, and of course the Piano concerto is a staple of the repertoire) and yet these varied works represent some of the composer's finest - noble miniatures and character pieces that rival the best that the nineteenth century has to offer. The four Album Leaves (or, more properly, Fire albumblade ), Op. 28 are just such works: subtle, delicate, technically undemanding, and, in the hands of a skilled and insightful player, richly expressive. • The Album Leaves were composed over the span of almost fifteen years, and thus to the interested musician present a fascinating cross-section of Grieg's pianistic and compositional development. They are arranged in chronological order as follows: Allegro con moto (1864), Allegretto espressivo (1874), Vivace (1876), and Andantino serioso (1878). • The main melody of No. 1, Allegro con moto, is prefaced by six introductory bars built on three offbeat chords and a three measure melodic descent into A flat major. A gracefully ornamented triplet figure gives the melody a delicate flavor that even the slightest heavy-handedness will quickly destroy. Frequent stretti appear throughout this colorful piece; the middle section is more melodically flowing. • No. 2 recalls something of the rich chromaticism of Wagner's later work. The decoration of the middle section outlines a series of ninth chords and is entirely characteristic of the composer. The piece dissolves away after a repeated sixteenth-note pattern, especially graceful in its three-against-four rhythm. • No. 3, Vivace, is an up-tempo waltz in A major with a more subdued A minor middle section. The last piece, Andantino serioso, is perhaps the finest of the group. Its legato C sharp minor melody is lifted straight out of the Norwegian folk-music tradition. A particularly striking Allegro giocoso middle section frolics over a sustained low D flat, providing an eloquent musical narrative but never displacing the deeply Nordic sentiment of the opening idea. • [allmusic.com]

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