Preface

This volume contains a selection of the easiest piano pieces and dances by Edvard Grieg and is intended to augment the teaching material used in piano lessons. The sporadic fingering marks by Annette Töpel are intended both as an aid and a stimulus to the player.

The Two Piano Pieces (nos. 1 and 2 in our collection) were previously available only in a facsimile edition of the manuscript, and appear here for the first time in a practical edition. They were written in 1858-9 and originally formed part of the cycle Nine Pieces for Children, a work from Grieg's student years in Leipzig. In 1859 he included both pieces in his collection of Twenty-Three Little Piano Pieces. Later the composer remarked on the title page: "Destroy these after my death! Never allow them to reach print!" In our volume, being primarily in chronological order, they mark Grieg's beginnings as a composer.

Grieg enjoyed particular success with his Lyric Pieces (nos. 3 to 5 in our collection), a series of some seventy compositions published in ten volumes and forming a cross-section of his entire oeuvre. The first volume appears as op. 12 in the catalogue of works for which Grieg supplied opus numbers (opp. 1-74); the final volume appears as op. 71. The Allegro ma non troppo (no. 6) stems from the cycle Poetic Tone-Paintings and may be viewed as a predecessor to the Lyric Pieces. One highly unusual piece is Klokkeklang ("Peals of Bells," no. 5), which is based on superposed fifths and thirds and penetrates into the realm of impressionism. It must be played with generous use of the damper pedal ("con Ped."). The multi-layered harmonies probably sounded quite "modern" in Grieg's day. Grieg also arranged this piece for orchestra in 1904. For more than half a century it has been heard every year in the opening concert of the International Music Festival in Bergen. In Norway, it is one of Grieg's most popular works. Incidentally, Klokkeklang forms an ideal starting point for the student's own improvisations.

The main focus of our volume falls on Grieg's arrangements of Norwegian folk music. A total of 114 such arrangements appeared in print from 1870 to 1903. They were published in six collections, of which four bear opus numbers (opp. 17, 29, 66 and 72) and two do not (Norges Melodier ["Norway's Melodies"] and Sex norske fjellmelodier ["Six Norwegian Mountain Melodies"]).

The Twenty-Five Norwegian Folk Tunes and Dances op. 17 were probably composed in Landås, Bergen, in 1869 and were published in 1870. Four of them are included in our volume (nos. 7 to 10). Piece no. 7, Halling, is a lively Norwegian dance for men in which one dancer holds a hat high in the air on a long pole while the others try to knock it down.

Another four of our pieces (nos. 11 to 14) were taken from the collection of Nineteen Norwegian Folk Tunes, op. 66. The fair manuscript of op. 66 was copied out from preceding sketches between December 1896 and January 1897; the first edition appeared in 1897. In this collection Grieg made a special attempt to probe what he referred to in a letter as the "untold harmonic possibilities" and "hidden harmonies" of these tunes. Ranveig (no. 13) takes its title from a girl's name that is quite widespread in Norway. Grieg heard and wrote down the tune of Gjendine's Lullaby (no. 14) in the summer of 1891 while on a trip through the Jotunheim Mountains. Gjendine Slaalien (1872-1972), then a nineteen-year-old dairymaid from Lom, sang this song to him with great expression while holding her sister's newborn child in her arms.

Some of Grieg's most important arrangements can be found in Slåtter op. 72, a collection of seventeen peasant dances whose dissonant harmonies had a strong influence on later composers such as Béla Bartók who likewise turned to folk music for inspiration. Grieg wrote them in Bergen between August 1902 and February 1903. The first edition appeared in 1903. We have chosen two of the slåtter for our volume (nos. 15 and 16). A friend of Grieg faithfully wrote down seventeen of these melodies from the performance of a hardanger fiddler who commanded a large repertoire of folk tunes. It was these melodies that formed the basis of Grieg's arrangements. In his preface to op. 72 Grieg discusses the origins of the tunes and the manner in which he transcribed them for piano: "These Norwegian slåtter [slått is the customary Norwegian term for the peasant dance] are presented to the public for the first time both in their original form for violin (or so-called hardanger fiddle) and in a free arrangement for piano. They were taken down in notation from an old minstrel in Telemark. Those with a love of these sounds will be delighted by their great originality, their combination of refined and delicate grace with coarse vitality and untamed savagery with regard to their melodies and especially their rhythms. These traditional melodies date from a time when Norwegian peasant culture in the remote mountain valleys was cut off from the outside world, and they have preserved all their originality for this very reason. All of them bear the hallmarks of an imagination at once bold and outlandish. In transcribing them for the piano, my task was to attempt to elevate what I would like to call the stylized harmonies of these folk creations to an artistic level. It lies in the nature of the instrument that the piano must omit many of the subtle embellishments idiomatic to peasant fiddle music and its peculiar handling of the bow. In compensation, the piano has the great advantage of being able to avoid excessive uniformity through its dynamic and rhythmic shading and especially through its ability to reharmonize the repeats. I have sought to draw clear, straightforward lines and altogether to consolidate the form."

Prillar from the Os Church Play (no. 15) was called by its composer a "dance for prillar horn (or trill horn), a wind instrument fashioned from a large cow's or goat's horn and supplied with finger-holes."

A leaf enclosed with the autograph manuscript contains, in Grieg's hand, the fairy-tale that forms the basis of the folk tune The Maidens from Kivledal: Springdans [Jumping Dance] (no. 16): "In Seljord in the Telemark region there lies a small valley called Kivledal. In ancient times a tiny church once stood here. One Sunday, when the congregation had gathered at Mass, the church suddenly resounded with loud tones wafting down the mountainside. It was the three maidens of Kivledal, the last of the heathens in the valley, who herded their goats on the mountain slopes while they played a slått on the 'goat's horn.' The congregation rushed out of the church and listened transfixed to the heart-rending sounds. The preacher followed and called to the maidens, telling them to stop playing their music. When they continued to play he raised his hand and excommunicated them in the name of God and the Pope. In that instant the maidens from Kivledal and their entire herd of goats were turned into stone. And even today one can see them standing high on the mountain slope surrounded by their goats, their horns raised to their lips. Thus the legend of the slått of the Maidens from Kivledal, as preserved by the peasants of that valley and as still played on their fiddles."

Pieces nos. 17 to 20 are taken from Six Norwegian Mountain Melodies, a collection published in 1886. The Norwegian words underlaid beneath the tune of piece no. 18, Bådnlåt ("Lullaby"), translates roughly as follows: "Lully, lullay, my child; the pot is hanging on the hook over the fire, full of rømme grits for my little child. Father is sitting and sifting the grain; mother is blowing the lovely horn; sister is sitting and spinning gold; brother is in the forest hunting all the wild beasts. If the beast is white, bring it here. If gray, let it run away. If brown, let it go into the forest."

The final two pieces in our collection are taken from the cycle Moods, composed from 1898 to 1905 and published in the latter year as op. 73. The title of Resignation (no. 21) is crossed out in one of the manuscripts and replaced with Prélude in pencil, the date "9/4/05" appearing at the end. The same manuscript provides further information on Lualåt (no. 22). The separate title page contains the addendum Fjeldljom ("mountain sounds"). The autograph manuscript, dated "19/8/01," also informs us that this mountain air originated in Jotunheim.

Michael Töpel (translated by J. Bradford Robinson)