Lyric Pieces, Book III

The six pieces that make up Book III of Grieg’s Lyric Pieces, first published in 1877, are wonderfully imaginative miniatures encompassing varied moods, memorable melodies and piquant harmonies. As their titles suggest, “Sommerfugl” (“Butterfly”) and “Smagfugl” (“Little Bird”) are typically playful vignettes, whereas “Ensom vandrer” (“Solitary Wanderer”) and “I hjemmet” (“In My Native Land”) project a melancholic inwardness that is possibly reflective of the composer’s longing at the time they were written to return to his beloved Norway. The most emotionally charged music features in “Til varen” (“To the Spring”). It opens unassumingly with a gently expressive theme in the piano’s left hand mirrored by shimmering repeated chords in the right hand. A more agitated middle section builds up to an intense climax before the main theme returns with a flowing accompaniment that surely depicts the ice melting as the new season takes wing.