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10 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
BONBONS FILLED WITH SNOW, 21 Nov 2003
Grieg's music does not remind me of Norway as I have never been there. His comparatively high profile is mainly due, it seems to me, from his status as a national icon - he may well be the only Norwegian composer I have ever heard of -- and while he does not seem to me to be even remotely of the stature of Nielsen far less Sibelius, he benefits in the way they do from the same factor. In musical terms the parallel that strikes me for Grieg is McDowell whose star is outshone in his own musical firmament.This recital has very much the feel of A Great Man Plays Grieg, and I more than half sense that I have awarded it 5 stars because I would not dare not to. The liner-note writer expresses due wonder that so exalted a virtuoso should have put so much work and care into pieces that can't have put much strain on his technique. My own sense of the matter is that what would seem order-of-magnitude differences in difficulty to an amateur like, say, myself were probably not even apparent to Gilels at all, and that the matters that exercised him, matters of interpretation and expression, were as serious here as in music of more obvious 'difficulty'. It would take a professional to handle the Scherzo op 54/5 as Gilels does, but technicians of the highest order seem to be ten a penny these days. What Gilels himself appears to have been drawn to, when he belatedly became aware of the pieces, was a special sense of intimacy in them, so that is what I looked for in his readings, and that is what I found. His tone in the first of the 20 pieces here, the Arietta, is conspicuously beautiful and affectionate, and here as throughout the disc the recording is sensitive and responsive. One senses that he and the works are new to each other, and that in the very best sense. The feel is thoughtful and involved rather than spontaneous, and that seems right to me too. I don't in general find Grieg spontaneous in the sense that the word would apply to Schubert or Weber or Mendelssohn or Schumann. The thought flitted in and out of my mind now and again that I would like to hear these pieces done by Cziffra whose peculiarly innocent effortlessness would surely have shed an entirely different and more unpredictable light on them, but I have no idea whether he recorded them, or played them, or even knew them. The thought was never there for long - Gilels kept me fully involved in his own inward interpretations of this inward music. The 20 pieces were selected by Gilels himself, and are given in strict opus-number sequence. If you listen attentively you will hear a process of change in the composer's idiom, notably in the slower numbers. If Im Balladenton op 65/5 is the same 'Ballade' as was apparently admired by Brahms I think I can appreciate why, and the liner-note author rightly draws attention to the harmonic advance in the really affecting Vorueber op 71/6. The playing-time of the disc falls well short of an hour, but enough of a good thing is enough. This is a notable if slightly out-of -the-way memorial to a great player. I'm very glad I acquired it, and I imagine many will be.
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~ Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin
~ Edvard Grieg
~ Johannes Brahms
~ Edvard Grieg
~ Daniel Barenboim
