Grieg: Arietta, Op. 12 No. 1

“Underrated, like most of Bloch's music, they are played here with aristocratic dignity by Emmanuelle Bertrand.” The Guardian

“The enthusiastic playing of Bertrand and Amoyel captures Saint-Saëns’ characteristic youthful vigour and gleeful virtuosity.” Classic FM Magazine

Alongside the Sonata Op.36 Emmanuelle Bertrand and Pascal Amoyel have transcribed some of the delightful Lyric Pieces as a sort of personal diary.They retrace the life of Grieg, from the little Arietta of 1867 to the final backward glance of Remembrances (1901). The programme also includes two original pieces for this formation, the Intermezzo and Grieg's own transcription of the Scherzo from his Third Violin Sonata. Discovered by the wider public when she won the young soloist category at the Victoires de la Musique Classique in 2001, Emmanuelle Bertrand is today among the foremost representatives of the French school of cellists. Her harmonia mundi recordings as a soloist or in tandem with the pianist Pascal Amoyel have received many prestigious critical accolades.

The composer Edvard Grieg was at the forefront of a flourishing of creativity that took place in Scandinavian culture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, alongside his contemporaries, Nielsen and Sibelius.

His imagination was particularly fired by the folk music and stories of his native Norway; it is, therefore, unsurprising that the music that resulted from this passion is some of his most popular with listeners. One such example is Peer Gynt, incidental music composed for Henrik Ibsen’s play, based on the Norwegian folk tale Per Gynt. Although the play itself met with a mixed reception, Grieg’s music, extracted and turned into two orchestral suites in 1888 and 1891, has become a staple of the concert hall – there cannot be many listeners unfamiliar with the fantastical sounds of ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’ or the sublime evocation of sunrise in ‘Morning Mood’.

Recorded in 1974