Grieg’s Lyric Items on a contemporary piano from Alexander Ullmann & on historic pianos with unequal temperament from Ziad Kreidy

Pianist Alexander Ullmann, who first got here to worldwide consideration in 2011 after successful the Franz Liszt Worldwide Piano Competitors in Budapest, has recorded guide 10 of the Lyric Items (Op. 71), together with Moods, op. 73, his personal transcription of the primary Peer Gynt Suite, and a choice of track transcriptions for Rubicon Classics. Ullmann’s disc was recorded on the church of St Silas the Martyr, Kentish City, so we now have to presume that Ullmann recorded on a contemporary piano of his personal selecting. Not less than, the recording sounds that means.

Lyric Items, Op. 71 (Guide 10) date from a interval when Grieg’s fashion was changing into extra harmonically complicated, influenced partly by folks music. Op.71 dates from 1901, and in 1902/3, Grieg would produce his Slåtter, Op. 72, the Norwegian peasant dances that permit the distinctive folks idioms higher reign. These could be adopted by Stemninger (Moods), Op 73 which appear to be extra developed that the Lyric Items, maybe going again to the form of Etudes that Grieg would have recognized in Leipzig. They have been his final full set of latest items to seem in print earlier than his dying in 1907. Listening to this recording of them, it’s troublesome to consider Grieg when he wrote to his buddy the Danish organist Gottfred Matthison-Hansen, “There are only a couple of previous Norwegian items that I’m happy with, however in any other case my coronary heart was not in them”.

Not everybody needs to hear to an entire disc of Lyric Items (Leif Ove Andsnes’ disc consists of 24) and Ullmann’s method, mixing the totally different items, works properly and I think about his file firm was happy to have the ability to embody a reputation as immediately recognisable as Peer Gynt. His poetic method to the piano ought to please many, and his disc offers a beautiful single programme, bringing Grieg into the twenty first century but nonetheless reflecting the folks influences which are important to the music.

In full distinction, Ziad Kreidy is a French-Lebanese live performance pianist, composer, and musicologist who has a specific curiosity in uncommon historic pianos. His disc on Bandcamp options Grieg’s Lyric Items, Op. 65 (from 1896), Op. 68 (from 1898-9) and Op. 71 (from 1901) performed on a trio of upright pianos from the early twentieth century, every tuned utilizing Neidhardt’s unequal temperament Für eine große Stadt, giving every key a definite character and making a traditionally knowledgeable soundscape. Johann Georg Neidhardt (1680-1759) was a German organist and theorist who proposed varied temperaments together with Für eine große Stadt (For a big city) from 1732.

Every set of Lyric Items is performed on a special instrument, although all three have been recorded in the identical place, at Claude Baudry’s workshop within the Paris area, the pianos and microphones have been positioned in the identical location for every session.

We’ve got Op. 65 on a Rönisch (1915), Op. 68 on a Feurich (1918), and Op. 71 on a Steinway (1924). Evaluating the 2 pianists, the sense of contact may be very totally different together with the tone high quality. Not everybody will recognize the interval pianos but the sound-world Kreidy conjures has a little bit of magic to it. Every word has a specific high quality, giving the performances a form of shimmer. Whereas Ullmann utilises his fashionable piano to present us suave, refined phrasing. Each pianists mirror the folk-idioms of the items, however by placing us in interval costume, by some means Kreidy provides us a extra naive, folks world, while Ullmann may be very a lot of the salons the place Clara Schumann was doyenne.