Soloists, Malmö Chamber Choir*
Malmö Symphony Orchestra
Bjarte Engeset, conductor

Grieg’s incidental music for Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt (1874-5) won immediate success and ranks among his most enduringly popular compositions, its huge range of orchestral tone-colours and creative use of space captured on this recording by placing actors, chorus, and folk musicians both onstage and behind the scenes.

Foran Sydens Kloster, composed in 1871 as an interlude for Bjørnson’s heroic play Arnljot Gelline, and Bergliot, a monodrama written in the same year and orchestrated in 1875, reveal Grieg as a master composer of dramatic and lyrical stage music.

This recording includes authentic folk musician recordings as well as the original narration.

“Naxos’s ongoing series of Grieg orchestral music has been offering performances basically as fine as any in the catalog. These performances of the two canonical Peer Gynt Suites are gorgeous, perfectly paced, and thrillingly recorded.”
Classics Today