Malmö Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Bjarte Engeset - Grieg: Orchestral Music, Vol. 3 - Symphony in C Minor, Old Norwegian Romance with Variations (2007)

Few symphonies can have been the subject of so many reservations as the 20-year-old Grieg’s ‘forbidden’ Symphony in C minor of which the composer himself wrote, on the score, ‘must never be performed’. Though hardly typical of Grieg, with its links to Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann and the Danish composer Niels Gade, this is a remarkably assured work filled with positive, youthful energy, and many fresh musical ideas. The popular orchestral suite Three Orchestral Pieces from ‘Sigurd Jorsalfar’, Op. 56, derived from the incidental music of the same name, was often taken by Grieg on his concert tours abroad. The concluding Homage March, almost a symphonic poem in itself, develops into a brilliant, almost barbaric festive march.