For the 42nd entry in its The Romantic Piano Concerto series (is it already really that many?!), Hyperion travels to the chilly land of Norway. The one and only piano concerto from this region of the world -- and it is a very famous one -- that automatically comes to mind is Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16, a youthful, formally sprawling work that stands as a landmark among romantic piano concertos. The concerti by Norwegians Eyvind Alnaes and Christian Sinding postdate the Grieg by at least two decades and ...
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For the 42nd entry in its The Romantic Piano Concerto series (is it already really that many?!), Hyperion travels to the chilly land of Norway. The one and only piano concerto from this region of the world -- and it is a very famous one -- that automatically comes to mind is Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16, a youthful, formally sprawling work that stands as a landmark among romantic piano concertos. The concerti by Norwegians Eyvind Alnaes and Christian Sinding postdate the Grieg by at least two decades and are both more concise and assured by comparison, not to mention lush and strongly melodic with big tunes and showy virtuosic stuff for the soloist. For Alnaes, his D major concerto from 1914 is the exception rather than the rule; he was an organist and the most prominent Norwegian art song composer of his day. Alnaes' Piano Concerto in D major is the last large-scale work among only a few that he completed. While it superficially evokes the manner of Rachmaninoff, it is pleasant...
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