This recording, made in 1976, is one of a group of
Grieg
recordings from those days on the
Vox
label, reissued by
Naxos
in the early 2020s in an "audiophile edition." That is a stretch in that the originals were no great shakes sonically, and remastering can do only so much. This is, however, one of the few complaints here; the music on the album is thoroughly enjoyable. Listeners today may forget the popularity of the
Utah Symphony
under conductor
Maurice Abravanel
, who brought top-quality symphonic playing to the U.S. Intermountain West. The
Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16
, is performed by native Utahn
Grant Johannesen
, and it runs counter to the modern type, with its spiky rhythms, especially in the finale, smoothed down in favor of a warm lyricism. Even better are the purely orchestral selections, of which two, the
Old Norwegian Melody with Variations, Op. 51
, and the luminous
In Autumn, Op. 11
, are hardly played nowadays.
Abravanel
gives us a taste of what audiences have been missing. The variation set is full of humorous passages that make one swear that the work must have a program (sample the eighth variation), although it had none. The work has a low-key charm that tends to be missing from concert programs now, and the album as a whole testifies eloquently to what a crowd-pleaser
could be. ~ James Manheim