An interesting future from the Naxos label:
Edvard Grieg - 3 Concerti pour violon et orchestre de chambre (d'après des sonates pour violon et piano)
Concertos n°1, n°2 & n°3 (orch. Henning Kraggerud & Bernt Simen Lund) / Henning Kraggerud, violon - Tromso Chamber Orchestra
Link:
http://classique.abeillemusique.com/CD/Classique/8573137/0747313313778/Naxos/Edvard-Grieg/3-Concerti-pour-violon-et-orchestre-de-chambre-d-apres-des-sonates-pour-violon-et-piano/cleart-69260.html (http://classique.abeillemusique.com/CD/Classique/8573137/0747313313778/Naxos/Edvard-Grieg/3-Concerti-pour-violon-et-orchestre-de-chambre-d-apres-des-sonates-pour-violon-et-piano/cleart-69260.html)
Tromsø Chamber Orchestra is part of the Arctic Philharmonic Orchestra - from what I can tell these pieces were on one of their programs last year.
...as you can see, these are arrangements of his violin sonatas.
More information:
Grieg: Violin Concertos ?
Grieg never wrote a violin concerto! What to do for an ambitious artistic orchestra leader? Henning Kraggerud and the cellist/arranger Bernt Simen Lund have rearranged Griegs three violinsonatas to orchestra format! This brave initiative is exactly what Grieg himself practised rearranging own works for new instrument combinations or use. The world-premiere took place in Tromsø, Arctic capital of Norway at Tromsø Chamber Orchestra's "Griegfest" on 29th November 2012.
The result of this music-historic event was met with ovations from the audience, filling Tromsø Culture House near to the brim.
The newspaper «Tromsø» agree:
Grieg-Without doubt.
"Henning Kraggerud is a remarkable violinist with great integrety. And Tromsø Chamber Orchestra is high class. To those who did not to attend the concert: You may look forward to hear Grieg's three "Violinconcertos" on CD."
(To be recorded for NAXOS by Henning Kraggerud & Tromsø Chamber Orchestra in January 2013)
http://www.proarte.no/news/news.htm (http://www.proarte.no/news/news.htm)
Uh... I like Grieg, but... no.
It's worth considering that Beethoven, for one, was not adverse to turning his violin concerto into a piano concerto, yet he never considered (so far as we know -- and for good reason) turning, say, the Kreuzer sonata into a concerto. As one who has accompanied violinists in all three Grieg violin sonatas since the early 1970s, I vote for Beethoven's genre choices.
The 19th-century orchestra is, without doubt, one of western culture's greatest and most seductive creations, but so is the accompanied violin sonata. What makes Grieg's violin sonata 3 his greatest is the quality of his response to the subtext of great string sonatas that have gone before -- NOT prior concertos.
That hits the nail absolutely square on the head. I suppose no great harm is done by the experiment of rewriting Grieg's sonatas as concertos. But then it really is rather dumb surely? What's the point? And as Chill says, the experiment shows no understanding of the musical context of string sonatas and the entirely different language and context of a concerto.
Yes, I'm sure the audience loved the thing and applauded wildly. But having forked out for tickets they would hardly say 'boo'. Dammit, hope Naxos doesn't actually market this thing as 'Grieg's Violin Concertos'. Ugh, horrid!
We don't need these arrangements, but - remembering the rather good Horovitz/Wallfisch arrangement of the Cello Sonata - I for one will be buying it in the hope that I'm wrong...
Most people who arrange sonatas into concertos forget that there are reasons other than mere Classical convention for that opening tutti (... see e.g. Thorpe-Davie, Girdlestone, Alfred Einstein, who provide some imhonesto non-dogmatic and thought-worthy explanations of the whole thing and why the classical-period/etc. concerto is not, as really has mistakenly been written, a "sonata for solo instrument and orchestra".)
They're marketing it as Three Concerti for Violin and Chamber Orchestra, at least on the cover (see here (http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.573137)...)
Huh, shame on them! For, as Naxos themselves say in the small print, Greig never wrote such things as Concerti for Violin and Chamber Orchestra.
I yearn for a world in which the term "sonata" was perceived by the marketing department as having equal weight and attractiveness to "concerto".
BIG DEAL!!!! Everyone knows Grieg did not write any Violin concerto so what's the big issue? Grieg recycled quite a bit of his own music if I'm not mistaken. As long as they don't mess it up like the Elgar Piano Concerto I welcome this.
Well I'm sure not going to the barricades over the issue! But I do think there is an issue here, albeit not an earth shattering one.
Naxos operate in a mass market, and within that market it is quite false that "everyone knows Grieg did not write any violin concertos". I've got no quarrel with someone who wants to recast the Grieg sonatas as something else (though quite why they should want to do so is something that escapes me). My quarrel is with a record company or publisher who deceives a potential purchaser.
It is also an invidious practice for it implicitly suggests to the innocent that an arrangement of a sonata as a concerto somehow is an 'improvement' (besides revealing a lack of understanding of the conventions in which sonatas are composed and performed). So in the end it gets people to think that a sonata, written for but two instruments, is somehow inferior to a work written for soloist and orchestra. Thus in effect it surely discriminates against the former, reduces opportunity for listening to or appreciating Grieg's own compositions. In other words, another instance of dumbing down, playing to a market, not taking seriously what a composer intended. A bit like 'improving' the Mona Lisa by tarting up the image by daubing on the cosmetics to make her appear more like Madonna?
And the Elgar 'Piano Concerto' is a red herring here. That was someone's attempt to complete Elgar's own very fragmentary sketches.
Naxos have already taken Grieg's violin sonatas seriously - by recording them in their original form, also with Kraggerud. So I see no reason at all why they shouldn't bring out these arrangements. The only question for me is: how good are they? We'll see..
Grieg was not averse to providing the occasional Mozart piano sonata with an accompaniment. This was arguably less intrusive than the case of Gounod, who perhaps motivated by the same Zeitgeist, was not averse to treating a finished piece by Bach as an accompaniment for his own 19th-century tune. Hommage takes many forms.
I suspect that the making of the three Grieg violin pseudo-concertos was not all that different in spirit from Grieg's second-piano afterthoughts. I suspect, however, that the pseudo-concertos will end up in a position of similar importance (or unimportance) within the Grieg canon.
Schumann provided accompaniments to the sonatas and partitas (then just called sonatas, I think) of Bach, and to his cello suites (sonatas, again, I think they were called then; of those accompaniments only that to no.3 survives...) among other works. It wasn't unusual, I think.
Audio samples are available here:
http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Naxos/8573137#listen (http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Naxos/8573137#listen)
However odd it sounds with Grieg's violin "concertos", I like the result! In my opinion a sonata doesn't easily transfer into a full-blown concerto in terms of length of lines, etc., but if viewed as a kind of concertinos these versions of the sonatas will be an interesting addition to any Grieg fan's library.
I agree.
The CD turns out to be a distinctly guilty pleasure. Strangely, I actually wanted more from the orchestra (the recording quality's a bit murky and one-dimensional), but I rather liked the arrangements. My mother will love 'em!
On reflection, maybe the arrangers should have called them "Three Concertinos" - that would have been much nearer the mark.
I wonder why it is that, generally, I can't easily stomach chamber works all got up in outlandish togs masquerading as orchestral works, whereas transcriptions of orchestral (or operatic works) for chamber ensembles or solo keyboard) are wholly palatable? In crude terms I'm happy with 'scaling down' but hardly ever with 'scaling up'.
For example, I've spent hours of sheer contentment drooling around with Klindworth's transcriptions of Wagner, or Liszt's versions of Beethoven symphonies or opera transcriptions.
When people start fiddling around with, for example, orchestral arrangements of Brahms' piano quartets, Grieg violin sonatas, or (worst offender) Beethoven's Grosse Fugue for full string orchestra or whatever I rapidly turn off.
Largely tangential to the thread I appreciate, but do others share the same prejudice? I suspect I'm in a very small minority. Ach, well, we can't all have identical inner ears.
I'm the opposite - hate reductions, love upscale arrangements. Still, variety's the spice of life...
I've no problem at all with up-, down- or sideways-scaling (Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No.5 anyone?) established works for other instrumental combinations, but I'm afraid that I can't raise much enthusiasm for this exercise. Like Alan, I found the orchestral contribution apologetic and half-hearted, which is a shame as the soloist, Henning Kraggerud, is very good and his orchestration sounds idiomatic and convincingly Griegian (ish?). There's nothing heroic in these winsomely pretty pieces and Kraggerud is appropriately charming throughout, but I just felt that in this recording the music wasn't that far above the level of musical wallpaper.
Quote from: Mark Thomas on Sunday 28 April 2013, 17:38
Griegian (ish?)
'Griegian' seems to be correct:
http://www.griegsociety.org/filer/1085.pdf (http://www.griegsociety.org/filer/1085.pdf)
I'm obliged.
...as am I to the Grieg Society.
Griegians one and all, obviously!
Well, I'm not much for either ups or downs. If the composer had wanted a work to be written as an X, he would have done so himself. As some have.
For me, the Rachmaninoff "5th" was a perfect example. Sure it sound like Sergei - why wouldn't it? it's his music. But the transcriber failed, in my opinion, to write a piano part that even remotely sounds like something Rachmaninoff would have done. But, as has been acknowledged so many times, we all gotta be somewhere......
Jerry
...and so back to Grieg.
Well, how's the 2012 Naxos CD of Grieg's 1.5 quartets arranged (by an A. Ardal) for string orchestra (plus a work by Nordheim)? Well arranged? Well performed? (the quartet in G minor, and the quartet in F (EG 117) completed by a friend of his named Julius Röntgen - no relation to the other Julius Röntgen whose name has been ... yes, yes, it's the same...)
I would most likely never listen to the sonatas, and I doubt if I would ever have heard these Grieg works.
Much of Debussy's orchestrated solo piano works are in the same category..and I am certainly eager to hear these pieces as well. Perhaps it is bad taste for purists, but some of us just have a simple preference for larger ensembles.
Of course, Debussy orchestrated some of his piano music himself - La Plus Que Lente, Berceuse Heroique and Marche Ecossaise Sur un Theme Populaire (and supposedly the Intermezzo for Two Pianos, but it's lost if he did). It's pretty silly to talk about 'purists' when the composers often did it themselves -- may be not sonatas, but single movement works have a long history of later orchestrations - sticking with Debussy, his Premiere Rhapsodie, for instance.
Actually that WOULD make an interesting point -- are there any sonata form type pieces a composer later orchestrated (skipping of course ones that they intended to in the first place, just happened to do the piano version first), be it accompanied or not?
And hell, how it is much different than going the other way (which is VERY common), perhaps outside the fact that this was usually done for practical purposes...
(And I for one absolutely love all three of the orchestrated Debussy Preludes sets..abnd everything else I can get my hands on, for that matter)
far as I know off-top-of-head, the Bartok sonata for 2 pianos and percussion wasn't at first intended to be a concerto, but was orchestrated by the composer only some years later- outside our remit but an example.
Ravel also orchestrated several piano works, and usually disowned the solo version afterwards. One could point to Alfred Hill, if he's not beyond our remit, many of whose symphonies are orchestrations of earlier string quartets, and still exist in both versions.
I don't recall hearing he disowned the piano versions afterwards, and people have recorded - e.g. and especially - the solo and orchestral versions of Menuet antique and the full piano and briefer orchestral (and sometimes an augmented-by-others with orchestrations of the other movements, including by David Leo Diamond) Le tombeau de Couperin (my favorite Ravel work) ... etc. ... - so often after all that they must feel part of the family again. I should hope.
Not so much disowned as never publicly performed again, perhaps. Ravel wasn't the most talented pianist (he composed his G Major Piano Concerto beyond his own ability to perform), but he was still pretty formidable at the keyboard. But once he orchestrated one of his piano works, he would conduct it, but not play the earlier version.
Though it's beyond the remit of this forum, may I mention in passing that Bax's first symphony started its life as a piano sonata, and is brilliantly recorded as such by the German pianist Michael Endres, for one.
Well, 2/3rds of it did :)
Quote from: TerraEpon on Monday 06 May 2013, 06:50
Of course, Debussy orchestrated some of his piano music himself - La Plus Que Lente, Berceuse Heroique and Marche Ecossaise Sur un Theme Populaire (and supposedly the Intermezzo for Two Pianos, but it's lost if he did). It's pretty silly to talk about 'purists' when the composers often did it themselves -- may be not sonatas, but single movement works have a long history of later orchestrations - sticking with Debussy, his Premiere Rhapsodie, for instance.
Actually that WOULD make an interesting point -- are there any sonata form type pieces a composer later orchestrated (skipping of course ones that they intended to in the first place, just happened to do the piano version first), be it accompanied or not?
And hell, how it is much different than going the other way (which is VERY common), perhaps outside the fact that this was usually done for practical purposes...
(And I for one absolutely love all three of the orchestrated Debussy Preludes sets..abnd everything else I can get my hands on, for that matter)
I'm surmising that you took offense to the use of the word "purists" and took my comments completely out of context. I was referring to other posters as purists and obviously not composers.
More importantly, I did not intend to evoke a Slonimisky-style response which used the abrasive term "silly".
To be sure, I fully understand the sentiments of musicians who have played a solo or small ensemble piece who wish to keep a piece of music just as they performed it or first heard it, regardless of who revised it or why it was revised.
To repeat in simplest terms, I prefer to listen to larger ensembles - if that is musical blasphemy, I am both guilty and silly.
"Live a life of love, honestly, appreciate kindness and strength. Sprinkled with a little silliness".
Quote from: Alan Howe on Sunday 28 April 2013, 13:14
On reflection, maybe the arrangers should have called them "Three Concertinos" - that would have been much nearer the mark.
Or better still, "sonatas for violin and orchestra", which effectively what they are. According to Naxos, "In these arrangements the solo violin is set against a string orchestra augmented by wind instruments in order to retain the feel of chamber music." One can retain the feel of chamber music even more by playing these pieces as Grieg scored them.
Quite.
While I wouldn't want to miss the best recordings of Grieg's sonatas in their original violin & piano version, I have to admit - after listening to it now - that this new recording contains immensely enjoyable and rewarding chamber music at the highest level. Unlike the orchestrated version of Grieg's cello sonata on Chandos,this is a great disc!