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What great works were?

Hava a look at "For dine føtter" ("At your feet"). It changes the key all the time, and modulations often come surprisingly and with great effect. I think this is great music.

I have not done any reading up on Grieg's life or what scholars have said about these Lyric pieces, so what I have to say is based on what little I know about him and of the music I've heard. It does sound to me like he was making them accessible to amateur pianists (as opposed to writing concert pieces). I've heard his concerto and played through some of it, so I know he certainly is capable of writing technically demanding pieces on par with other great composers. And not to say these pieces aren't demanding in their own way, because I have some big technical challenges in mine that will take weeks to work out.

Also, they appear to be very reflective of the folk music in Norway - not that I know what it sounds like, but these pieces have quite a folksy sound to them. I don't know if Grieg was an ethnomusicologist (I think that practice came later with Bartok and Kodaly), but perhaps Norwegian folk music has this characteristic of changing keys a lot? In my 2nd unofficial piece (71/5 Halling), there's not much by way of traditional modulations in the sense of a series of chord progressions gradually getting you to a new tonal center, but more simply shifting to a new key and repeating material there. Due to the "unsophisticated" nature of these tonal shifts, one may assume this is more a Norwegian folk music thing.

Anyone from Norway have thoughts on this?

You have hit on two important things.

When I said "normal people" and "not giving Liszt Etudes a run," you said "accessible to amateur pianists." [And no, keystring, I was not talking about a competition among composers ... ]. Grieg's work was quite popular in the UK across the North Sea precisely because normal people could aspire to play it at home in the parlor. It was truly pop music, and this is not a criticism of it.

Secondly, a huge percentage of this stuff is indeed folk music and/or inspired by it. This was the time that "national music" was developing, and Grieg was a champion of that. Think of "The Five" in Russia at around the same time. Or Smetana, Dvorak and Janacek in Prague. Albeniz and Granados in Spain. The list is long (and includes Chopin from the previous generation).

Which does not change the fact that the music I'm looking at is formulaic. The same thing is transposed from key to key. And this does not make it easier for the amateur to play, because it takes more skill to try to squeeze something out of it so it doesn't sound redundant. Maybe this music was Grieg's bread and butter. But he had the skill to pull it off.

The cheap trick jibe was directed squarely at the typical pop song key change. I was careful enough (I thought!) to put a full stop before absolving Grieg of the same chicanery -

- I’d be hard put to make it any clearer.


Ganddalf offers a perfect example. In At Your Feet he uses modulation extensively but it's inspired and beautiful (which is why I chose it as my second piece – now I fully expect to have it confiscated from me!). In some other pieces I fancy I hear a ‘process’ at work – always effected with style, often clever, but more craft than art.

Grieg definitely was an ethnomusicologist. He spent much time listening to fiddlers, singers and people who used other traditional instruments. He collected a lot of folk tunes, and has also made quite a lot of transcritpions for the piano.

Here's an example of traditional Norwegian music played on the Hardanger fiddle.

http://youtu.be/wFAogFZIQ_I

Not many modulations here. A characteristic of the Hardanger fiddle is the presence of four sub-strings that are not touched by the bow, but adds to the harmonic spectrum. Not all people like the sound of it, and it takes some time to really understand this music. Anyhow this kind of music was one important source of inspiraion for Grieg.

You may also notice that this piece actually uses the Lydian modal scale. This is quite characteristic for Norwegian folk music, and also quite obvious in some of Grieg's music.

One more comment about the Hardanger fiddle:

People who don't care much about the fiddle say that the strings of the ordinary fiddle are made from the intenstines of a cat. For the Hardanger fiddle they are using the whole cat.

Lol! I suppose that's after rigor mortis has set in. Would the tail be the handle? And what do they do about a case to fit everything in?

Thanks for the hardanger link - that's a great sound, intricate. I hear some elements of that in what I take to be Irish and Scottish fiddle music - Cajun fiddle too although it's much more basic. I suspect some of those similaries arise out the the physical, playable aspects of the instrument rather than itinerant musicians crossing the globe, infecting each others' ideas. Maybe a bit of both?

Tere is no doubt that Grieg was inspired by local folk music, and the titles "Gangar", "Springar" og Halling" refers to Norwegian folk dances traditionally performed by fiddle or Hardanger fiddle.

But I would like to choose for my second choice a piece that is a bit more "impressionistic" - Liten Fugl opus 43 no 4. As far as I can see there has not been any battle over this one so far

I found another - this fiddler really brings out the attributes of the instrument. (enjoyable)
Haakon Solas - playing Hardanger fiddle
Thank you for introducing us to this instrument, and more about Grieg.

OK, this helps a LOT with understanding my pieces! Both of them have ostinati in 5ths as well as a lot of parallel 5ths going on. I actually like the sound of this fiddle, although the lady playing is tapping her foot very slowly to a totally different beat, I can't tell if that's supposed to be like that or a bad habit.

Thanks for posting the Hardingfele!

I think the fiddler was right on the beat I dance to music like this, but some of it is, um, obscure, until one gets used to it. It's traditional for the fiddler to tap their foot so the dancers can hear, tho I'm sure long-time dancers probably don't need it. But I remember, when I first started, a friend of mine and I never did figure out if one piece was in 4/4 or 3/4 But I love this music. There is Scandinavian dancing here in Santa Fe, but unfortunately for me it's on the same night as other dancing I do so I don't go any more. It's also turning dancing, and some times if my allergies are bad I get nauseous. But it's wonderful dancing.

Cathy

Maybe slightly off topic, but I would like to share with you an example of a short symphonic piece based on a Norwegian folk tune. It is written by an English composer, Frederick Delius and has the title "On hearing the first Cuckoo in Spring". Grieg also made an arrangement of this melody, and if I'm not completely wrong the title is "Kveld ved Olatjønna" ("Evening at the Ola pond", where Ola is a very traditional Norwegian boy's name). Unfortunately I couldn't find a link to Grieg's version, but here is the beautiful piece of Delius who spent quite a lot of time in Norway.

http://youtu.be/lTDKa64DRgQ

For those interested in more about Grieg's music I should also mention that he definitely mastered the short form better than extensive works, the piano concerto being the exception verifying the rule. He wrote a large number of songs for solo voice plus piano. Many of them are real masterpieces, but probably not so well known outside Norway as the text often is in Norwegian (although some of them also have text translated to German).

I have been lucky enough to do the piano part of quite a few of them. Unfortunately I have no recordings of these performances, but I give you a few examples of professional performances.

"Til våren" ("To Spring") where the piano part has been transcribed for orchestra:

http://youtu.be/H518yDjQw1c

"Jeg elsker deg" (Do I need to traslate it?)

http://youtu.be/psXoVpESlhc

"Ved gjætle-bekken" (Don't know how to translate it) This is the last song in the cycle "Haugtussa". This is formally more advaced than many of the other songs. Just notice how Grieg develops the simple theme!

http://youtu.be/1Uxkqqy9xbY

Curious that you should mention this piece, Ganddalf, (first cuckoo) - I've known it since my childhood and bought the score during my early teens - I was completely captivated by the lush and unusual harmonies. I could never quite understand how an englishman came to have such a strange name.

Ken Russell, before he became a mainstream film-maker, did a series of biopics and one of these was devoted to Delius and his relationship with Percy Grainger - it can be found on youtube in 5 parts under the heading 'Ken Russell - Delius - Song of Summer (1968)'. I'd strongly recommend it...

(just realised it wasn't Grainger but Eric Fenby who was responsible for draughting out Delius's scores).

I watched that program on Norwegan television, and it must have been shortly after it was produced. That was my first introduction to Delius, and it made such an impression that I still remember quite a lot of it.

I wasn't around in the last week, so this is a little late, but I must say I laughed really hard when I read this

I also liked the discussion on the Hardanger fiddle, except for the fact that now I want one because they look really cool.

On ebay, someone calls them called "fancy violins."


Anyway, I need to stop fantasizing about fiddles and work on Arietta. Measures 12 and 22 keep throwing me off timing wise.

Please put me down for 43#2 as a second piece if its still open. I'm enjoying the Grieg and finding the lyric pieces more accessible than the waltz I've done before. Really looking forward to hearing all of you play.

By George, I think I've got it. Yes, these pieces are quite accessible for the true amateurs among us!

The formulaic attributes of my piece (Halling from Op. 38) offer signposts for memorization. Two bars of this, then two bars of that. Then repeat, one octave below. Then a new four bar theme. Simple transition and then back to the original two bars of this and two bars of that. Slight variation on to the conclusion. Simple and elegant folk music.