Edvard Grieg (1843–1907) was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is widely considered one of the leading Romantic era composers, and his music is part of the standard classical repertoire worldwide. His use of folk music brought the music of Norway to fame, as well as helping to develop a national identity.
Grieg is most famous for his Piano Concerto in A minor, and for having written the incidental music for Henrik Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt, which includes the excerpts In the Hall of the Mountain King and Morning Mood. Later, he made this music into two orchestral suites.
Much loved by pianists are ten books of Lyric Pieces, in which he established his special kind of sound, closely related to various folksong arrangements he made, such as four Norwegian Dances and 19 Norwegian Folk Songs.
Two Nordic Melodies of 1895 came about after Grieg received a musical motif in folksong style from Frederik Georg Knut Due (1833–1906), a Swedish-Norwegian diplomat who enjoyed being a part-time composer. Grieg made use of the motif as his own and developed it into a lengthy piece for string orchestra.
To create a small suite, Grieg chose two genuine folk tunes, Nos. 22 (Cow-Call) and 18 (Peasant Dance) from one of his piano collections, 25 Norwegian Folk Songs and Dances, Op. 17, which he now arranged for strings.
Cow-Call is based on a simple musical motif frequently belted out in the evening to attract the attention of cows grazing in distant mountain pastures.
Peasant Dance conceals the real meaning of the Norwegian title, which implies ‘a tune played by a fiddler sitting on a tree stub as people dance around him’.
The sound clip is computer generated using sampled sounds (AI). Transcriptions and descriptions are not AI-generated.
Set contains one score and one copy of each part, as download or on paper. Copying allowed by acquiring band for their performances only. Additional copies may be obtained from the J. W. Pepper webshop.
Edvard Grieg (1843–1907) was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is widely considered one of the leading Romantic era composers, and his music is part of the standard classical repertoire worldwide. His use of folk music brought the music of Norway to fame, as well as helping to develop a national identity.
