Grieg’s piano concerto, published in 1868, was the piece that launched him into stardom. As a result of its popularity, he quickly became the musical embodiment of his home – Norway – in the eyes of the world. However, as is so often the case, Grieg’s identity was a nuanced thing: Grieg’s father was actually Scottish and served as the British consul at Bergen. As a piano prodigy, Grieg studied not in Norway, but rather in Germany, at the Leipzig Conservatory.
While Grieg was still in school in Leipzig, he heard Clara Schumann perform her husband’s Piano Concerto in A Minor. That experience clearly left a lasting impression on Grieg – he would later say he “remained in style and form a German romanticist of the Schumann school.” The influence of Schumann is evident from the outset in Grieg’s concerto: Grieg borrows his A minor key from Schumann, and, like Schumann, he starts his concerto with an opening cascade down the keyboard.
On one level, this piece is clearly Grieg’s attempt to create a work in the style of the great German master. And yet at the same time, this concerto has unmistakable signs of Grieg’s Norwegian folk influence. Grieg once wrote, “To one distinctive feature of our [Norwegian] folk music I did indeed feel myself drawn: the manner in which the leading note was handled, and most particularly the downward shift of this to the fifth.” The melodic motion Grieg is talking about, from tonic to leading tone to fifth, is precisely the motive we hear at the very beginning of his Piano Concerto. As a result, this remarkable piece of music can be heard as a testament to the expressive power of efforts to transcend national boundaries. This music embraces elements from across the cultural milieu of its time, showing us that lasting beauty arises when we emphasize togetherness over division.
—Nick DiBerardino
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