Grieg: Ballade in G minor, Op. 24

Fifty years ago on a country road near Arundel, Sussex, a car unaccountably left the road and hit a tree, killing all three of the vehicle's occupants. One of the passengers in the car was Richard Farrell. Richard was just starting an amazing career as a concert pianist. In 1956 he made what was to be his last tour of New Zealand. By this time he was tackling some of the mountain-peaks of the pianistic repertoire in his programmes - things like the Brahms F Minor Sonata and the "Handel" Variations, Ravel's "Gaspard de la Nuit", Chopin's Op.10 Etudes, and some Liszt transcriptions and paraphrases. As well, with the New Zealand National Orchestra, whose work with conductor James Robertson he praised, he played the "Emperor", and the Ravel Left-Hand Concerto. That same year Farrell had commenced what seemed a highly promising recording career in England with Pye Records, beginning with a coupling of the Grieg and Liszt E-flat concertos in which he was partnered by the Halle Orchestra under George Weldon. These two concertos are on this recording.

“I always feel a sense of homecoming when I perform Grieg yet I don’t think that this is necessarily because I am Norwegian. Grieg’s music has a universal feeling - a sense of drawing the listener in - and that is probably why he remains Norway’s most eminent composer even now, 100 years after his death.” Leif Ove Andsnes

Tony Harrison (creative director)

On this fascinating new release pianist Sigurd Slåttebrekk has attempted to recreate the performance of Edvard Grieg’s own pioneering acoustic recording from 1903 of several of his solo pieces. The session was recorded on Grieg’s own 1892 Steinway at Troldhaugen. On the bonus second CD he is joined by the Oslo Philharmonic and conductor Michail Jurowski in a performance of Grieg’s Piano Concerto.

Sigurd Slåttebrekk has previously released acclaimed recordings of Ravel and Schumann, co-created the animated TV-series "Elias" for children (Emmy nomination 2006) and is now finishing his thesis on late 19th Century pianist performing styles. Tony Harrison is a classical music producer regarded as among the foremost and most creative in his field today.

The 1903 acoustic recordings of Grieg playing nine of his own piano pieces are well known. Sigurd Slåttebrekk and creative director Tony Harrison were drawn to the artistic quality of the playing itself, and this evolved into a historic pioneering project of 'musical archaeology', reviving a performance tradition from over a hundred years ago. They have listened in depth to each detail of Grieg's own playing and tried to imitate the performances at Grieg's piano at Troldhaugen. Slåttebrekk has not only recorded the pieces Grieg himself made, he has also further applied what he has learned about Grieg’s approach to performance in his completion of the Sonata in E minor, and the epic Ballade in G minor.

One of the most notable musicians in post-war Norway, Eva Knardahl was a vibrant and spirited figure in the musical life of the nation, performing, participating in public debate, and involving herself in various boards and committees. She was justly referred to as a breath of fresh air, both with regard to the richness of her musical expressivity, and to the manner in which she ardently defended her views.

Eva Knardahl gave her official debut recital at the age of eleven and immediately came to the attention of the Norwegian public. At her debut concert she performed no less than three piano concertos, and it was soon clear that hers was a unique gift. Following studies with, amongst others, Mary Barratt Due, in 1947 at the age of 27 she moved to the USA. In 1952 she took up the post of pianist with the Minnesota Symphony Orchestra, and soon became recognised as the foremost artist on the instrument in that area of the United States. In 1965 she was encouraged to return to her native Norway by the conductor Karsten Andersen, and the next period of her life can be divided into two sections, the first being from 1965 to 1984 when she performed as a soloist, and the second from 1984 to1994 when she held the post of professor of chamber music at the Norwegian Academy of Music. Although her repertoire as a pianist included the concertos of Brahms, Beethoven and Mozart, as a result of her time in the States, the modern American piano tradition was very much in her veins, and she was a great champion of works like Leonard Bernstein’s 2nd Symphony, “The Age of Anxiety”. Her recordings of the complete works solo piano by Grieg for BIS in the 70’s are still considered to be amongst the best.