Edvard Grieg - Lyric Pieces (Volume IX), op. 68 (Piano, Orch.) [With score]

-Composer: Edvard Hagerup Grieg (15 June 1843 – 4 September 1907)
-Performer: Håkon Austbø
-Orchestra: Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra
-Conductor: Ole Kristian Ruud

6 Lyric Pieces Book IX, op. 68, written in 1898-99, orchestrated in 1899

Piano
00:00 - I. Matrosernes Opsang {Sailors’ Song}
01:59 - II. Bedstemors menuett {Grandmother’s Minuet}
04:05 - III. For dine Fötter {At Your Feet}
07:11 - IV. Aften på Højfjeldet {Evening in the Mountains}
09:44 - V. Bådnlåt {At the Cradle}
12:05 - VI. Valse mélancolique

Orchestra
15:58 - Aften på Højfjeldet {Evening in the Mountains}
19:59 - Bådnlåt {At the Cradle}

The ninth book of Grieg's Lyric Pieces were written in 1898 - 1899, and while the fragile state of the composer's health was not great during this time, he was at least in these years stable and productive. In the early part of 1898, Grieg was chief organizer of a music festival in Bergen. Directly against the wishes of the festival's board of directors, and the advice of his closest friends, Grieg went to the trouble of bringing in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw under Willem Mengelberg to Norway. The ninth book of Lyric Pieces was complete by September 1899, as in a letter he records playing them in a rare public recital in Bergen; "The little mountain piece sounded just the way I had imagined it. People continued to clap, but I did not do it da capo. Afterward I played one of the other pieces in the same volume: 'At the Cradle.'" Despairing of the Lyric Pieces and their unbridled popularity in letters of 1896, Grieg nonetheless seems to have come to terms with the new set by the time of its introduction in 1899.

Outside of the two pieces mentioned in Grieg's letter, there are no real standouts in the ninth book; however, this group is remarkable in its consistency of style as a whole, and the pieces are relatively easy to play. These five pieces are all short, and the whole book takes less than 20 minutes to play, as compared to a half an hour for the sixth book. The opening "Matrosernes Opsang" (Sailor's Song) is a stately march in cut time. "Bedstemors Menuet" (Grandmother's Minuet) is a skewed vision of an early nineteenth-century musical form, invaded by Grieg's stylistic tendency towards repeating figures in octaves. "For dine Födder" (At Your Feet) is a warm, romantic fireside piece that captures a snapshot suggesting the contentment of a long-married couple. "Aften på Höjfeldet" (From the Mountains) is a stark impression of Norwegian folk melody that would be worthy of inclusion in Bartók's Mikrokosmos. More than half the piece is played as a solo melody in the right hand, and as Grieg suggests, a da capo repeat of the first section wouldn't really work. "Bådenlåt" (Cradle Song) is a truly lovely miniature that utilizes parallel harmony in a manner suggestive of French impressionism. The concluding "Valse mélancolique" likewise is French in style, but more in step with the practice of d'Indy in its use of wandering, chromatic underpinnings and a heavy accent on the second beat of the bar.
[...] There are five compositions on Grieg's works list having the title Bådnlåt, all essentially lullabies. Three are adaptations of folk songs, all appearing in his set of 19 folk song arrangements for piano, Op. 66 (1896 - 1897), and one is this effort from Book 9 of his Lyric Pieces series. The fifth Bådnlåt is a transcription of this piano piece for strings. Grieg also wrote five other lullabies (some as songs), demonstrating he was not only fond of the genre, but always highly skilled at it. While he lived another decade after writing this Op. 68 effort, he never wrote another lullaby. In a way, Grieg, generally upbeat and light in his works, was the perfect composer for this kind of music. Here he presents a lovely, quite simple melody that is instantly recognizable as his own, mainly owing to the subtle harmonies that impart a slightly exotic Nordic character to the dreaminess and innocence of the melody. The brief middle section is playful, though gently so, and after a return of the lovely main theme, the music quietly ends. Lasting about two-and-a-half minutes, this piece is yet another example of the composer's melodic skills and deft ability to charm the ear with seemingly simple materials.