Grieg: Holberg Suite / Two Elegiac Melodies / Two Lyric Pieces / etc

Hybrid Disc (SACD Surround / SACD Stereo / CD Stereo)
Playable on all compact disc players

"This is simply the most beautiful record of Grieg's string music in the catalogue, and one of the most beautiful and realistic recordings of strings we have ever heard. Try and hear the disc on SACD equipment with four speakers, and you will be amazed; but it sounds pretty marvellous through just two."
Penguin Stereo Guide Rosette Recording

"This new recording is something special. First of all the SACD sound is really splendid. The sound is warm and all the intricacy of Grieg's multi-part string writing is clearly revealed; the sound stage perspective is exemplary. More importantly Ruud and his Bergen players clearly love their national repertory and these well-loved works sound as fresh as when you first heard them. They are played with warmth and commitment; the ensemble playing is immaculate, the phrasing beautifully expressive; the sweet sentimentality of so many of the little pieces never over-indulged, never allowed to become cloying"
(MusicWeb Feb 2006)

Gathered on this disc are all of Grieg's works for string orchestra, together with Evening in the Mountains from Op. 68, which also features oboe and horn. All of them are the composer's own arrangements, of some of his most popular songs or piano pieces.

At the time, they functioned as vehicles for Grieg himself as a conductor - the role he usually filled on his many international concert appearances. As other similar works from the same period, they weren't necessarily composed for small ensembles - in many cases the number of divisi parts presupposes a fairly large string orchestra in order to get a full sound.

Here it is the strings of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra who amply fulfil any expectations that the orchestra's previous Grieg recordings will have given rise to: the full-bodied sound of a large orchestra's string section combined with the fleetness and rhythmic flexibility of a chamber ensemble. This is especially clear in movements such as the Rigaudon of the Holberg Suite, Grieg's paraphrase on the 18th century dance suite and one of his most well-loved pieces.

About our recently released Peer Gynt, MusicWeb International wrote 'these discs provide a wonderfully refreshing view of Grieg's music, in fine idiomatic performances' while Sigurd Jorsalfar, an earlier disc in the series, earned the following words from the reviewer from Classics Today.com: 'I can't imagine finer interpretations than those offered by conductor Ole Kristian Ruud and a clearly energized Bergen Philharmonic.' On this disc, Ole Kristian Ruud and the Bergen strings again give us performances that are as fresh as the dew on a Norwegian mountain top, while remaining firmly rooted in a Grieg tradition that no orchestra could know better than this one, Grieg's own.