Edvard Grieg (1843-1907): Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16
Hjálmar Helgi Ragnarsson (b. 1952): Stilla (for the left hand)
Edvard Grieg (1843-1907): Peer Gynt Suites 1 & 2 (arr. for piano 4 hands)

I've never quite understood why Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto is not top of mind in people's thoughts when asked to identify some of the best piano concertos. Composers like Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, and even Mozart, are mentioned before they even consider the Norwegian composer. And yet, his Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16, boasts one of the most audacious opening movement intros in the whole repertoire, one of the most lyrically beautiful slow movements, and a closing coda as epic as they come. And all of these characteristics are well brought to the fore by German pianist Margarita Höhenrieder. The Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie under the direction of Jonathon Heyward provide exceptional support throughout and even add an extra level of melancholy to the highly evocative opening pages of the Adagio movement, in which the piano's entrance at the 2:20 mark rivals anything ever conceived by Chopin.

It's also nice to hear one of Grieg's most famous works, the Peer Gynt Suites, in the composer's own adaptation for four-hand piano. The extra set of hands here is provided by Finnish pianist Antti Siirala. Both he and Margarita Höhenrieder well express and convey the varying emotive states of each individual segment, be it the inherent sadness of The Death of Ase, the exotic nature of the Arabian Dance, or the growing power and momentum of In the Hall of the Mountain King.

I'm well aware that these days, in order to promote "new music" by living composers, the ongoing trend within record labels is to include one such work alongside established repertoire, as is the case here with Icelandic composer Hjálmar Helgi Ragnarsson's solo piano piece Stilla (for the left hand), a piece actually commissioned by Margarita Höhenrieder. Stilla is an Icelandic term that implies a formal arrangement. To my highly trained musical ears, it very much sounds like most of the music by today's composers; incoherent, amorphous, and nondescript. I suppose it fits within this recording's Northern Lights subtitle, but they could at least have indexed it to be last on the CD so as not to break the mood established by the Grieg pieces.