Grieg quickly discovered that his greatest talent was for short, evocative compositions. Naturally, a shift in the emphasis of his music from longer and more abstract pieces to shorter pieces took place. Even when he wrote short pieces, he tended at first to give them abstract (tempo marking) titles; his first forty piano compositions (in five sets) were titleless. He first assigned titles in 1867, in a suite he called "Lyric Pieces." This came to be Book 1 of ten sets. Each was a great success and thus delighted his publisher, particularly beginning around 1885, when Grieg turned out a set about every two or three years. Each sold out upon publication.

The first two or three movements were written while Grieg was staying in Denmark. It is "At Home", which was actually composed while longing for home: Grieg had written to his friend Frants Beyer about his wish to go out in a boat on a quiet morning. "The other day I was so full of this longing that it turned itself into a gentle song of thanksgiving. There is nothing new in it, but it is genuine and as it is really nothing other than a message to you, I enclose it here." He wrote the other four movements, including "Solitary Wanderer" (where expressed the longing he alluded to in his letter), back in Norway. "Erotikon" was inspired by his love for his wife, Nina. The final movement, "To Spring, " stands as the programmatic representative for the whole set, for, as Grieg wrote to his publisher, all six pieces comprise a set of "spring songs."

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1.Sommerfugl (Butterfly)

Many musicologists have asserted that Grieg—and others, like Liszt—wrote Impressionist music before Debussy. To support their case, they cite piano works like Bellringing (1896), certainly a powerful example whose Impressionism and other-then-avant-garde-like characteristics are difficult to deny. This relatively modest work, Butterfly, may be less musically progressive, but contains elements of Impressionism as well. That said, it looks backward, too, to Schumann and maybe to Mendelssohn, thus offering an unusual mixture of the past and future in music that is quite lovely in its light, bright character. The fluttering and playful nature of the music vividly suggests the motions of a butterfly. Yet in a sense, divorced from its title, the music might well strike the ear as being quite traditional in its busy charm and cute tumbles. The main theme swirls, flutters, and comes to rest quickly, but then immediately takes wing again. A less-energetic and less-luminescent variant of this theme alternates with it, providing effective contrast and enhancing the work's sense of color. This attractive piece typically lasts a bit less than two minutes.

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2.Ensom vandrer (Solitary Traveller)

This is the second work in Book III of Grieg's Lyric Pieces, a series that would extend to ten volumes housing 66 pieces. This one, Solitary Wanderer, is a fine example of the composer's ability to effectively and subtly capture a mood. Here, there is a feeling of loneliness, of desolation, but without a pervading or constant gloom. The works opens with a melancholy theme whose descending contour at the outset is answered by a hardly more hopeful ascending close. But the more animated variant in the middle section turns brighter, a sense of hope coming in the playful repetitions of an upper register motif. Still, the sense of loneliness is not dispelled and the main theme returns to close out the work. This piece may not contain the nascent Impressionism found in some of Grieg's work of just a few years later, but it is subtle and just as atmospheric as most of those more advanced efforts. Solitary Wanderer, though short, has a profound and ambivalent character that often yields widely varying interpretations and tempos. Thus, one may find performances as short as a minute-and-a-half and others nearly twice that length.

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3.I hjemmet (In my Native Country)

Tucked into the middle of Grieg's third book of Lyric Pieces is this affectionate miniature. The first phrase resembles the Shaker song "Simple Gifts," but immediately goes its own way, essentially easing itself down the scale (the piece begins high in the treble). Once the theme settles into the center of the keyboard, it is answered by a very brief, noble idea. The long primary theme then repeats itself, remaining in the middle register, the second idea puts in one more appearance, and a short, slow coda rounds out this tender little composition.

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4.Småfugl (Little Bird)

A good many of the 66 works that comprise Grieg's ten-volume set Lyric Pieces deal with nature or pastoral moods. Little Bird, the fourth piece in Book III, is such a work. But more than conjuring things bucolic, this charming effort serves as yet another example of Grieg anticipating elements of the Impressionist school long before they appeared in the piano works of Debussy. Here, with brilliant keyboard effects and subtle nuances of sounds, he vividly depicts the twittering and fluttering movements of a bird. But amid the sonorities that paint the images, Grieg also fashions a catchy theme, perhaps the chief element of appeal here that has made this one of the more popular pieces in the series. The work opens with lively trills in the upper register that deftly convey twittering and perhaps chirping, while etching out a delicate, charming melody. Secondary material derives from the trills and chirping sonorities, and also maintains the playful mood. There is a sense of wonder and joy in the music here, of innocence and the beauty of nature. This piece, lasting a bit under two minutes, will appeal to most piano music enthusiasts, even on first hearing.

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5.Erotikk (Erotikon)

This is the fifth piece from Book 3 of Grieg's Lyric Pieces, a series that would run to ten books and contain 66 works. Erotik is one of the more popular Lyric Pieces, but its title will be misleading to some listeners. It is difficult to say precisely what Grieg's concept of the word "erotic" was, but it certainly was different from most connotations of that word in today's language. Those expecting rhythmic or passionate music intended to portray or summon carnal thoughts will be disappointed by this disarmingly beautiful piece. To those, however, who view eroticism as something broader than the obviously sensual, this music will offer potential sonic riches. Grieg presents a ravishingly beautiful melody that seems mostly in descent, perhaps to suggest vulnerability. The pace quickens in the middle section and the mood turns intense, but at its climactic point yields back to the main theme, which is even more gentle as it descends to the lower ranges of the piano where the piece quietly ends. Lasting about three minutes, this work, like most of the better efforts in the Lyric Pieces series, will appeal to an audience of varying tastes.

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6.Til våren (To spring)

While many musical depictions of springtime involve lyrical pastoral settings with concomitant bird trills and the like, this compactly constructed composition expresses a remarkably impassioned outpouring of emotion. The seasonal change is imagined here as a trigger releasing a pent-up, yet clearly articulated, romantic cry.

Written in the rich timbres of F sharp major, the piece opens with a high repeated tonic chord pulsing semi-staccato on the last five beats of each 6/4 measure at an Allegro appassionato tempo. The melody which emerges from the pianissimo quietude is expressed in both triple and duple meters. The first phrases are simple arcs in the pentatonic mode expressing simple happiness. Then the melody begins to descend into the relative minor key revealing a more plaintive side. In the last phrases of the melody line, the tune works its way chromatically finding its way along a tension-filled path toward the dominant step which sings out on a forte dynamic.

There is a sudden drop back to pianissimo, and the melody is reiterated as yet unwilling to declare itself completely. Once more reaching the forte dynamic point and dominant note, the music drops immediately the bass for a long, agitation building passage with an obsessively repeated figure that is chromatically advanced upward. Octaves ring out like horns as three staves are opened up to notate the pulsing chords beneath. The octaves rise in pitch and volume. There is a sudden long pause, and the melody is stated once more, but now with full-out pianistic ardor stated in octaves accompanied by both pulses and swift bass arpeggios.

Midway through, the melody slowly ascends chromatically and builds to a fortissimo operatic aria-like peak. Another sudden break in the tension occurs as the dynamic drops to a piano softness and continues to diminish little by little throughout a series of Wagnerian harmonic changes. A simple, almost religious plagal ("amen") cadence closes the composition.

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An den Frühling (To Spring), lyric piece for piano, Op.43, No.6

As Grieg mavens are aware, the Lyric Pieces (66) often deal with subjects relating to nature, and stylistically many also augur the Impressionist school Debussy would usher in around the turn of the twentieth century. To Spring is both pastoral and Impressionistic, and also one of the composer's more popular Lyric Pieces. But it may be its wistful character and hints of the intimate kind of lyricism found in Liszt, and even in Rachmaninov (who was not yet actively composing), that have made this work popular.

To Spring opens with a highly imaginative depiction of waterfalls, as upper-register notes flutter and nervously fill the sonic landscape, their splashes and droplets surrounding a beautiful, somewhat angular main theme. While this melody has a winding but not particularly wide path, it also exudes an innate lyrical warmth in its rises and falls, a warmth that softens all edges and allows in a few beams of sunshine. Gradually the music builds, developing a head of tension, and then the melody takes on a more Romantic, more robust expressive manner, looking backward now rather than forward to Debussy. Spring has reached its flowering here, it would seem, and the music then fades quietly and the piece ends serenely.

© Robert Cummings, Rovi