Piano Concerto in A minor

Of the great piano concertos that make up the soloist’s usual repertoire, Grieg’s is the earliest to come from outside the Austro-German tradition that gave us the concertos of Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Schumann, and Brahms. Because for many people this piano concerto stands for Grieg, and Grieg stands for Norwegian music, we hear a Norwegian flavor throughout, starting in the main theme of the first movement (where there really is none) and in the spirited dance of the last movement (where there is plenty). But Grieg was a product of German training, and his clearest model for a piano concerto was the concerto, also in A minor, by Robert Schumann. Between the ages of 15 and 19, Grieg studied at the Leipzig Conservatory, a school where the Beethoven tradition was firmly inculcated in its students. He also attended the famous Gewandhaus concerts where he heard Clara Schumann performing her husband’s classic concerto.

None of his Leipzig teachers suggested to Grieg that his music ought to sound distinctively Scandinavian.  The Danish composer Niels Gade (1817–90) had spent many years in Leipzig, befriending both Mendelssohn and Schumann; though his works are polished and agreeable, it is hard to identify any Danish qualities in his music. Grieg was part of a first generation of composers who felt a need to craft a new musical language out of the folk music of their own country, as Smetana did in Bohemia and the Russians did in their own land.

In Grieg’s case, it did not happen overnight. His early works, which cling closely to Classical models, include a symphony, a piano sonata, and two violin sonatas, interspersed with smaller piano pieces and songs. After his time in Leipzig, he lived for considerable periods in Denmark, whose musical culture was several degrees richer than that of Norway. The Piano Concerto was in fact composed in Denmark in the summer of 1868, where Grieg spent the warmer months with his young wife. It was first performed in Denmark, too, though the soloist and dedicatee was the young Norwegian virtuoso Edmund Neupert.  Grieg was a good pianist and played the solo part himself in London and Manchester in later years, but he preferred to leave it in the hands of specialists on his concert tours.

By the time the Piano Concerto was being composed, Grieg had come under the influence of a number of Scandinavian musicians who were fired by enthusiasm for anything that belonged uniquely to their own countries. They were exploring folksong and dance music, and compiling collections for publication.  Then, in the summer of 1869, Grieg came upon a volume entitled Mountain Melodies Old and New, compiled by Norwegian organist Ludvig Mathias Lindeman. Grieg immediately made arrangements of 25 of Lindeman’s tunes, and he came back to the collection many times in the course of his life.

The effect of these revelations turned the composer away from large-scale symphonic works. He never wrote another symphony or another piano concerto. Instead, he devoted himself to songs and smaller piano pieces, many of which were compiled in sets of Lyric Pieces and played by pianists all over the world. He wrote stage music, including the famous Peer Gynt music of 1874, and a varied corpus of choral music. If the songs and choral music were not mostly settings of Norwegian and Danish texts, they would be much better known today.

The three movements of the Piano Concerto enjoy the satisfying balance of Classical form, with a richness of melody that makes the work so attractive. In the slow movement, muted strings present the main theme with sumptuous harmony, while the soloist initially responds with elegant tracery and then with a full-blooded statement of the melody. The horn is prominently featured throughout this movement, which leads directly into the spirited finale, with its unmistakable echo of peasant boots and its taxing demands on the soloist’s technique. The flute introduces a melody of a quite different sort, which turns out at the end, after the return of the dance has been transformed into a lively three-four pattern, to be called upon to provide the closing bars in shamelessly grandiose style.

—     Hugh Macdonald

Hugh Macdonald is Avis H. Blewett Professor Emeritus of Music at Washington University in St. Louis.  He has written books on Beethoven, Berlioz, Bizet, and Scriabin.