Grieg
Alexander Ullman Piano

Rubicon Classics is pleased to announce the third solo album for the label from pianist Alexander Ullman, presenting here a programme of Edvard Grieg’s Moods, Songs and Lyric Pieces. The prize of the album, Alexander’s own transcriptions of music from the Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, draw out the colour of the orchestra from the piano, perhaps more than the composer’s own.

Like Chopin, Grieg was more comfortable creating exquisite miniatures rather than large scale orchestral works. Both produced concertos for the piano, and Grieg’s example is one of the most popular in the repertoire, but it is in his small-scale solo works that his poetic musical expression had free reign. Conductor Hans von Bulow called him ‘The Chopin of the North’. Grieg’s music is full of Norwegian folk idioms as his Lyric Pieces vividly illustrate.

reviews

“His poetic approach to the piano should please many, and his disc provides a lovely single programme, bringing Grieg into the 21st century yet still reflecting the folk influences that are essential to the music.” – Robert Hugill

“Ullman’s recordings are superb, exhibiting a firm grasp of the originals. He effortlessly ferrets out and highlights the voice parts and creates for each vignette its own characteristic sound world and mood… Whether in his obviously significant gifts as a transcriber or in music where his probing interpretations reveal fresh insights, we can all look forward to experiencing more of the artistry of Alexander Ullman” – Gramophone Magazine

“Ullman doesn’t try to make these pieces more spectacular than they are, but his respect and love for them is evident right the way through. The late Stemninger, and still more delicious treasures, beautifully recorded. the whole thing reminds me of a line from the poet Christopher Smart: ‘For he is of melancholy from the depth of his serenity’. Yes, that’s Greig.” – BBC Music Magazine, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐