Marco Ambrosini - Edvard Grieg: Alfedans (2021) [Hi-Res]

The album Alfedans (Elf Dance) is the result of an unusual but extremely convincing symbiosis of two instruments: The nyckelharpa (also known as the key fiddle), which has survived in Sweden from the Renaissance to the present day and has since become an essential part of Scandinavian musical life beyond that country, unfolds its fascinating sound with a dazzling overtone spectrum and at the same time a wonderfully warm smoky depth through the numerous resonating strings. In combination with the rich colour palette of a symphonic organ, Marco Ambrosini, co-founder of the ensemble "Oni Wytars", and the organist Eva-Maria Rusche take the listener on a Nordic-inspired sound journey in the footsteps of the composer Edvard Grieg.

For their recording they have chosen suitable pieces from Grieg's "Lyrical Pieces" and "Norwegian Dances", which are among Grieg's best-known piano works, often written in the solitude of nature, which helped him to overcome his crises in life and creativity. In these piano compositions Grieg incorporated Nordic folk songs and dances. With organ and nyckelharpa, recorded in the church of St. Gebhard in Constance, the chosen lyrical pieces sound like the eponymous "Alfedans" (Elf Dance), "Folkevise" (Folk Song), "Halling" (Norwegian Dance), "Sommerfugl" (Butterfly), songs like "Jeg elsker dig!" ("I love you") and the chosen "Norwegian Dances" completely new, almost mystically charged, and let Grieg's works full of impressionistic atmospheric pictures, moving romanticism and stirringly captivating melodicism of Scandinavian folk shimmer in a whole new light.