Lyric Pieces, Book V

Of the 10 volumes of Lyric Pieces Grieg composed, Book 5 (Op.54) is the best known, partly because four of its six short pieces for piano were later orchestrated as the Lyric Suite. Published in 1891, Book 5 begins with “Gjetergutt” (“Shepherd Boy”), a pensive mood study suggesting that the boy in question has been caught in a moment of melancholy reflection. “Gangar” (“Norwegian March”) is, by contrast, a jaunty dance where Grieg has fun contrasting the delicacy of the upper keyboard figurations with more heavy-footed clomping in the bass. “Trolltog” (“March of the Trolls”) is another dance, this time powered by frantic staccato accents, with an unexpectedly relaxed interlude in the middle. “Nocturne” is dreamily Chopinesque, while “Scherzo” seriously tests the pianist’s credentials in its fleet-fingered outer sections. Book 5 closes with the remarkable “Klokkeklang” (“Bell-Ringing”), whose spare textures and use of resonance anticipate the Impressionism of Debussy. About Grieg's Lyric Pieces Between 1867 and 1901, the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg composed a series of 66 short works for the piano titled Lyric Pieces. Published in 10 separate books, the pieces range widely in subject matter and atmosphere. Some take Norwegian myths and locations as their inspiration (“Wedding Day at Troldhaugen”, “March of the Trolls”), while others probe more intimate emotions (“Solitary Traveller”, “Elegy”). Throughout the Lyric Pieces, Grieg’s deep love of Norwegian folk music is evident, and the cycle as a whole clearly prefigures the efforts of later composers such as Bartók and Vaughan Williams to assimilate folk influences in their music.