Grieg07 - English - Griegs A minor concerto as a national canon

1.During my first years in primary school we had a teacher who taught us a lot about classical music. One day she told us about a very important Norwegian phenomenon called ”the A minor Concerto”. In Norwegian the word konsert has got two different meanings. It may refer to a piece of music for one or more solo instruments and an orchestra, like the English word concerto. But it may also refer to a performance of a musical composition, like the English word concert. And at that stage I was aware of only the latter meaning of the word. Accordingly I believed that this mention of a ”konsert” must refer to a forthcoming event. My next guess was that this was a kind of event that had a permanent existence; a music that was happening ”all the time”. I was certainly on the track of something there, although I did not quite get it then. For the time being, I was still unaware of the true nature of the A minor Concerto.

Grieg began his work on the Piano Concerto in A minor in the summer of 1868 in Søllerød outside Copenhagen. In his novel The G Minor Ballad (1986), the Norwegian writer and pianist Ketil Bjørnstad describes Grieg’s creative situation at the time as a tension between low artistic self-esteem and growing international ambitions. ”I am not even sure if I am a composer anymore, or even a musician”, the 25-year old Edvard complains to his wife Nina in Søllerød, and continues: ”But if I was able to accomplish my work on this concerto, then it would take us into the world, do you know that?”. The Piano Concerto opus 16 was completed the following winter in Kristiania and premiered by the Norwegian pianist Edmund Neupert in Copenhagen on the 3rd of April 1869. The famous Russian pianist and composer Anton Rubinstein, who was present at the first performance, was, according to Neupert ”(...) really surprised to have heard such a brilliant composition; (...)”. Benjamin Feddersen, one of Grieg’s Danish friends, predicted in a letter to the composer that the overwhelming response ”(...) will contribute greatly to your being recognized as one of the most brilliant composers of our time.”

Rubinstein’s genial remarks were later shared by other internationally acclaimed pianists who presented the work to a wider audience. In 1907, the year of his death, Grieg responded to his early success among non-Nordic pianists by paying his great tribute to a certain foreign musician in particular. At this stage, distinguished Norwegian pianists such as Agathe Backer Grøndahl, Erika Lie Nissen, Fridtjof Backer-Grøndahl and Halfdan Cleve all had performed the A minor Concerto over the past years, but during the last months of his life Grieg nevertheless had a more distant figure on his mind. In the summer of 1907 he had a visit from the Australian composer and pianist Percy Grainger, who had been invited to Troldhaugen to study the A minor Concerto with the composer.

Grieg had met Grainger for the first time in London in May 1906, and the Australian’s impressing interpretation of the Norwegian Peasant Dances opus 72 on that occasion made Grieg ponder on the often forced connection between national identity and musical performance. To be a Norwegian does not guarantee that one understands Norwegian music, he observed. And ” (...) if this understanding is not to be found in the country where one would suppose to find it (...)”, writes Grieg, ”(...) then we may find it outside, yes, even in Australia, where the marvellous Percy Grainger was born. To demand that one has to be a Norwegian to understand Norwegian music and especially to perform it, is on the whole a lot of nonsense. Good music exists after all, no matter how national it may seem, far above the national level. It is cosmopolitan.”

At the end of his life Grieg had succeeded in exporting the A minor Concerto, which he claimed to be ”one of my best works”, beyond the small Nordic region. After his contact with Grainger Grieg must have felt much like a ”global” composer, since the foremost interpreter of his musicin his opinion came from the other side of the planet.

2.
It is ironic that Grieg should not only prefer Grainger to his Norwegian colleauges, but also reject the idea of nationality as a necessary condition for the understanding of a country’s musical tradition. For his reflections were written down only a few years after the Norwegian opera composer Gerhard Schjelderup nationalized the A minor Concerto in 1903 in his book Edvard Grieg and his works. In a letter to Schjelderup of 11th of May 1904, Grieg lists a huge amount of incorrect details in the published manuscript. Presumably not wanting to seem too harsh in his criticism of Schjelderup’s effort, Grieg praises the author’s qualities as a writer: ”You often give your thoughts a truly picturesque expression.”

Schjelderup wrote the book only two years before the Union of Sweden and Norway came to an end in 1905, and here he indeed paints his national-romantic vision of the A minor Concerto with broad strokes of the brush. He tells his readers that ”(...) This brilliant piano concerto is to me a symbol of the overwhelming power of our people. I see before me the whole of Norway with its endless variety and firm, monumental unity. The image narrows into a foaming river that makes its way with indomitable courage through the wilderness, between menacing, vertical rock walls and in defiant ferocity over vertiginous steep slopes

(...).” Finally Schjelderup describes how the waterfall becomes ”(...) more and more unconquerable and jubilant in its youthful power, impatient to see the great ocean at last – the story of the genius told in glowing colours, and with a vitality that expels all troubles and worries, (...), the gospel of power – ’I believe in my own strength’, as the vikings put it – this gospel, which defies all of the seemingly indomitable of Nature’s obstacles in our remote land of dreams in the far north.”

In 1934, when musical life in Norway was considerably influenced by nationalistic viewpoints, the Norwegian composer David Monrad Johansen echoed the essence of Schjelderup’s poetic visions. I quote from Monrad Johansen’s biography of Grieg where he comments on the concerto: ”Divine inspiration may hardly appear more unrestrained and straightforward in the material! We have seldom come upon a young artist’s rich and vigorous temperament delivered in such a fresh and spontaneous manner in his music – and above all: the inspiration of nature has hardly ever been expressed more beautifully and in a more plastic way in the strict classic sonata form.” Monrad Johansen then calls attention to this concerto’s unique position ”among all the piano concertos of the world”, considering that this work ”(...) is to be found on the repertoire of every pianist worldwide, (...).”The Swedish writer on music Folke H. Törnblom published his biography of Grieg in 1943, and he agrees with Schjelderup that behind this internationally acclaimed work ”(...) lies ’the whole of Norway’.”

When Finn Benestad and Dag Schjelderup-Ebbe published their book Edvard Grieg: The Man and the Artist in Norway in 1980, it was immediately recognized as the definitive biography of the Norwegian master. The national prestige of the A minor Concerto was at this time thoroughly established, and the authors were able to elaborate on to what degree the universal validity of the work has exceeded its national background: ”In the concerto, Grieg instinctively managed to give the local color an appearance that elevated it to the international level”, they write, adding that ”(...) the national and Griegian elements (...)” in this work ”(...) have been naturally integrated in a genuine musical whole that has a message for everyone.”

3.
During the first half of the nineties, however, two events of national importance reinforced
the national-patriotic canonization of the concerto. The Norwegian writer Einar Økland wrote his essay ”The A minor Concerto” especially for the political anthology Reader 1994, which the organization against the European Union (Nei til EU) published previous to the Norwegian popular vote in the autumn of that year. In his article Økland succeeds in elucidating how Grieg’s Concerto may function as an uniting, musical expression representative of Norwegian identity. To Økland, as was the case for Schjelderup ninety years earlier, the conception of Nature plays an important part here, and we get the pleasant feeling that in this respect little or nothing new has happened in Norway since 1903. Except perhaps that while Schjelderup saw the A minor Concerto as an intense, dramatic picture and metaphor of the powerful spirit of the vikings, Økland focuses on ordinary people and their lives. In his text we sense to what extent the Norwegian citizens have appropriated the true nature of the Concerto and made its national spirit their own. In Økland’s account the work returns to its source; back to the ”land of dreams” which Schjelderup wrote about and where it actually belongs.

Økland explains why this composition is ”Norway’s national hymn”: ”In the A minor Concerto one is able to set out on the open sea in good spirits in a fishing boat while the snow-mountains tower wildly and powerfully inside, one is able to go on walking tours up the steep mountain sides, trudging on dry rocks while breathing in the mountain air, drinking glacier water and taking in views magnificent enough to make an end of all longing – views that may give a feeling of enough. Enough. (...). All this and everything that concerns Norwegian climate, Norwegian working life, Norwegian leisure time and Norwegian moments in Norwegian nature, one acquires in the A minor Concerto.”

The concerto thus mirrors and expresses something deeply unchangeable about being a Norwegian in Norway. And the national qualities and at the same time universal potential of this work is not least (as I vaguely assumed as a child) founded on its recurrent appearances in the Norwegian media, particularly in the national radio on solemn occasions. Continous broadcasting means that the concerto is always there to be appreciated by the Norwegian people, and it thus corresponds with deeply rooted expectations in the national psyche: ”The A minor Concerto is a hymn that independent of images or words shows us that yes, this is certainly good, it is wonderful, and it is us, it is ours! (...) Anybody may enjoy the A minor Concerto, but it is doubtful whether it can be properly understood by others than Norwegians. And it is impossible to steal the A minor Concerto. Stealing the A minor Concerto is like stealing all of us Norwegians.”

In his last year Grieg himself described the concerto as ”(...) this work with which I so to speak have spent my life since my youth.” Økland provides us with the national, collective version of the individual artist’s close relation to his own work when he assign the ability to understand a piece of music to the Norwegian people with which the same work is so closely identified. The Norwegian pianist and teacher Einar Steen-Nøkleberg, whose book Med Grieg på podiet (which may be translated as Playing Grieg on the stage) was published in 1992, the year before the great Grieg Jubilee in 1993, is the second writer I would like to quote from the 1990s. Compared with Økland’s visions on behalf of the nation as a whole, Steen-Nøkleberg connects a nationally defined musical identity to a smaller and considerably more homogeneous group of Norwegians.

Steen-Nøkleberg has recorded and performed the complete piano music of Grieg, and what he has got to say about Grieg’s music deserves to be taken seriously. His text deals with Grieg’s collected piano works with opus numbers, stressing the great importance of the piano concerto, which Steen-Nøkleberg regards as ”the number one work among Norwegian compositions” altogether, and the Ballade opus 24. According to the author, these two works correspond in a crucial way with the musical identity ascribed to Norwegian pianists. The self-esteem of these pianists seem to depend on their attitude to and experience with the A minor Concerto in particular. The following collage of quotations from Steen-Nøkleberg’s book will serve to illustrate my point: ”Both the Piano Concerto and the Ballade are works that all Norwegian pianists must play if they wish to count at all. (...) If you want to be a performer with self-respect you must play the Ballade and the Concerto. (...) All pianists with self-esteem must have it [the piano concerto] on their repertoire, and no Norwegian pianist counts at home unless he masters it with eminent skill.”

Økland and Steen-Nøkleberg are both inclined to place the A minor Concerto in a domestic setting where it occupies a chosen position as a national icon. In a strictly pianistic context this unique position of the concerto implies that the well-defined tribe of Norwegian pianists have no real choice: By national proxy they are expected to identify with whatever is the ”message” of the concerto, and they are at the same time charged with the difficult task of letting this ”identity” come off in their performance of the work. Viewpoints like these are by no means limited to Norwegian commentators. Recently – in August 2007 – the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra performed the Grieg Concerto at the Proms in London, with a Russian pianist playing the solo part. The critic Geoffrey Norris in Daily Telegraph had one main objection after the performance: ”The only pity was that there was not a Norwegian pianist on hand to complete the picture in the famous Piano Concerto, for there was something strangely dispassionate about the performance given by the Russian-born Boris Berezovsky.”

According to Norris, Norwegian pianists appear to be best suited to paint a passionate picture that, one may guess, harmonizes with Gerhard Schjelderup’s dramatic Nordic visions of the work’s character. Or maybe Norris is longing for Einar Økland’s more prosaic images of the concerto. In any case, it is no wonder that Steen-Nøkleberg will have us to believe that the ”self-respect” is at stake whenever a Norwegian pianist for some reason or other rules out the A minor Concerto from his or her repertoire. Einar Økland claims that whoever try to steal the A minor Concerto will automatically be stealing all Norwegians. In Steen-Nøkleberg’s pianistic version the metaphor may perhaps be rendered thus: The Norwegian pianist who does not play Grieg’s concerto, is in danger of being robbed of his or her identity as a musician.

4.
When Einar Økland writes that the A minor Concerto is Grieg’s ”(...) only one, our only one.”, he no doubt also alludes to the fact that the concerto is the only celebrated work of its kind that has its origin in a Norwegian tradition. Benestad and Schjelderup-Ebbe have given the following account of how this so to speak incontestable position of the A minor Concerto may be explained. They describe an unique occurrence in the history of Norwegian music: ”Through the years the A minor Concerto has lived a life of its own by virtue of its enduring fine qualities. It possesses an unusually many-faceted charm, fascinating melodies, varied rhythms, finely polished harmony, instrumentation that is at times brilliant, and an effective solo part that combines elegant virtuosity with lyric beauty.”

To Norwegian pianists, both the national and international success of the work implies a twofold obligation. On the one hand the national, canonical status of the concerto serves as a patriotic reminder to new generations of pianists to report for duty, so to speak. On the other hand, the work’s international reputation puts the pianists under pressure to make an international career by passing on a national icon with all its local references to a foreign audience.

The question arises: What part – if any at all – should national matters play to pianists selecting their repertoire in the 21st century? Charles Rosen has some instructive remarks about how the pianists may proceed when selecting a repertoire that is meaningful to them in his book Piano Notes. The World of the Pianist: ”The keyboard repertory is vast, much of it relatively unexplored territory. No other instrumentalist is offered so wide a range of possibilities as the pianist. (...) Merely becoming aware of what is out there is a prodigious task.” Rosen proposes that each piano student at an early stage sight-reads through what we may call the ”western canon for pianists”: The piano music of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, Debussy, Schoenberg and Stravinsky among others.

This is the repertoire a pianist ought to know from an early stage. This ballast may then form the basis of the student’s later development of a personal, musical identity. Pianists are creative artists in their own right, and they invest a lot of hard work learning one single composition properly. The question is how the individual pianist, in the light of his or her temperament, professional skill and musical preferances, may be capable of combining a satisfactory knowledge of the repertoire with an independent and personal development as a musician.

Charles Rosen indicates the following solution for the pianist who seeks the ideal absorption in this respect: ”Both conservatory and competition rightly and necessarily demand an adequate account of the general repertory. Yet the character and even the style of a pianist is determined as much by an individual and personal choice of repertory as by manner of interpretation. (...) Pianists should, in the best of all possible worlds, play only the music they love and – (...) – to which they think they can bring an interpretation that is deeply personal. (...) Choosing repertory because of commercial pressue or intellectual pressure is, in the end, self-defeating.” Here I would like to add national pressure as another such factor.

With regard to the pianist’s choice of repertoire, it is instructive to read what Grieg himself had to say about the subject. Steen-Nøkleberg mentions the Ballade along with the concerto as a composition all Norwegian pianists should master. Grieg, however, had his own ideas about this. In a letter to his Danish friend Gottfred Matthison-Hansen in 1880 he has certain objections to make about the artistic versatility of one of Norway’s most distinguished pianists at the time: ”After New Year Erika Lie-Nissen will pay you a visit. Hopefully she are not going to play my Ballade, as she hinted at. For that purpose she lacks – quite a lot, above all passion and – greatness.”

Grieg was clearly aware of the diversity of his own output. And we should also realize today, with regard to the vast keyboard repertoire available, that for a musician it is unwise to tie up one’s repertoire to an occupational, national, political, ideological, commersial or pedagogical agenda. In his novel Identity, Milan Kundera defines conformity as ”the great meeting place everybody are aiming at, where life is at its most (...) glowing.” Some pianists may prefer a less glowing atmosphere for the benefit of a more personal one. Today many Norwegian pianists of the younger generation accordingly seem to have acquired a sharpened consciousness about which works they wish to perform.

A recent example of this attitude has been expressed by the Norwegian pianist Ellen Ugelvik, who specializes in performing contemporary music. When interviewed by the newspaper Bergens Tidende in 2006, she declared that ”(...) I definitely do not feel at home with the classical tradition. I hardly would have become a pianist at all if I did not play experimental music, (...).” Ugelvik relates her own identity – or self-respect - as a pianist to a repertoire that indeed finds itself far away from the concerto and concert tradition represented by the A minor Concerto. I am here reminded of something important the Norwegian pianist, composer and conductor Christian Eggen wrote a short generation ago.

”When will the musical life of the future begin?” was the title of his article in the newspaper Aftenposten in 1985. Eggen complained of the general enthusiasm for piano competitions where the contestants deliver mechanical renderings of the great romantic piano concertos. He asked ”Why do everyone have to cling to these pieces?”, hinting at well-known warhorses by Chopin, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. He also pointed out how ”Our actual existence is shaped by dogmas and postulates, (...) we suffer under the dictatorial influence of our inherited conceptions, (...). the original artist is being neglected for the benefit of the virtuoso.” Eggen’s point here was that the great piano concertos will survive somehow or other, and they should therefore not be ”a main task for our musical life.”, as he put it.

The A minor Concerto and its musical counterparts have, to paraphrase Benestad and Schjelderup-Ebbe, ”lived a life of their own” for a long time. The A minor Concerto is now so familiar that it sometimes does not seem to need much help from either instrument or performer. The Bergen International Festival, for instance, traditionally have Grieg’s concerto on the programme of their closing concert each year. In 2006 and 2007, however, this practice has been varied by the use of respectively historically correct piano from the 19th century and, to a certain degree, historically correct pianist for the performance of Grieg’s work. The 19th century piano used in 2006 was difficult to hear in the big Grieg Hall, but that did not really seem to matter: It became clear that the A minor Concerto may be enjoyed even without the piano sound being heard properly. And when Percy Grainger’s playing was brought back to life last June, by the use of a piano roll recording from 1921, the audience appreciated the performance even without a visible pianist to play the solo part. The concerto’s position in the Norwegian canon was thereby emphazised, by exploring its ”authentic” past by means of a public performance that took the audience’s thorough knowledge of the work for granted.

The A minor Concerto is in my opinion a brilliant piece of music. But it evidently does not need any help from every pianist in the world, and likewise the pianists do not necessarily exist to play it. Not even the Norwegian ones, I think.

Notes