It was a typical summer morning in Bergen. Far out on the horizon the migrating hake glinted like silver in the water, and the fragrance of drying Lutfisk permeated the air. Edvard Grieg opened his studio window and inhaled deeply. The sky was overcast, but so strong had been the midnight sun that its reflection still gleamed and twickered from the dark waters of the fjord, lighting up an occasional argentine hair in the composer's unkempt mane and weedy mustache. He felt the rising tide of inspiration, now about halfway up his calves. "I think," He said thoughtfully, ''that today I shall write my concerto." "I wish you'd get a haircut first," said his wife Nina-Nina Hagerup that was--as she applied a sheen of blubber to the snowshoes. ' 'What will you call it?' “I'm considering," he said, "something direct--like 'The Grieg Concerto'." "Oh, fab, Cousin Edvard!," overflowed Nina. She called him that because she was his mother's niece and because it made him nervous. Nothing daunted, however, he wrote the concerto in little more than twenty-four hours, leaving himself a future which he could devote to leisure except for the "Peer Gynt Suites,'' which he need not think about for a while.
It should have been like that, and for all I know I may have remembered the story from Great Composers for Tiny Readers, which was full of such stuff. But according to more adult sources, Grieg actually wrote the concerto in Denmark. He was twenty-five, a new father, deliriously happy in his marriage, and determined to shake off the Mendelssohnian influence and write music that reflected his own country and culture. That is probably why he imitated Schumann in the first movement. But why should I go on about the Grieg concerto? It was a success from the outset, and everyone knows it, and those who don't should be ashamed of themselves. I'm sometimes inclined to think, "Oh, that old war-horse!" but when I hear it again it's as fresh and limpid as ever, and I'm wholly disarmed.
The work usually called “The Holberg Suite" (properly "Suite in Olden Style: From Holberg's Time") is by no means so well known, more's the pity; I find with surprise that my only recording is Arthur Winograd's of nearly twenty· years ago. Originally written for piano in 1884, it was scored for strings a year later. It is a classical dance suite and that is about its only connection with Ludwig, Baron Holberg, the father of modem Danish literature, whose 200th birthday it was supposed to celebrate. (The idiom is pure Grieg.) I was once inspired to read such of Holberg's comedies as were available in translation and found them delightful.
The concerto marks the recording debut of handsome, young Rico Saccani, born in Arizona 24 years ago. A pupil of Winifred Knight, Patricia and Ozan Marsh, Nadia Boulanger, Jeanne-Marie Darre, and Gaby Casadesus, he has won a number of awards and prizes, including first place in the first international competition sponsored by the Southwest Pianists' Foundation. He has concertized widely, and created a sensation when he played the Grieg Concerto with Arthur Fiedler. Paul Freeman, no stranger now in these parts, is an Eastman Ph.D. and a pupil of the late Pierre Monteux. He has served as Conductor-in-Residence with the Detroit Symphony, Associate Conductor of the Dallas Symphony, and Principal Guest Conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic, among other such posts, and is artistic director of Columbia Records' Black Composers project.
