Grieg Trio: Beethoven - Kaipanen – Trios
MICs Listen to Norway series continues with Grieg Trio: Beethoven - Kaipanen – Trios
Grieg Trio, one of Scandinavia’s leading piano trios, marks with this release the beginning of a new project: to combine pieces by Beethoven and newer works by contemporary composers. The focus on this album is Finnish composer Jouni Kaipanen (b.1956), and the featured work here is his Piano Trio which is flanked by one late and two early opuses from the hand of the old master, Beethoven himself. Kaipanen’s work stands well on its own and isn’t over-shadowed by Beethoven’s. Grieg Trio interprets the featured works in an elegant and balanced fashion with a constant flow of rich ideas. Grieg Trio manages to highlight aspects of the two composers’ works that can be viewed in connection to each other: the melodrama of Kaipanen’s “Marcia funebre” has its equal in Beethoven’s variations over the theme in “Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu”. The end result is rich in nuances and utterly rewarding.
Grieg Trio: Beethoven - Kaipanen – Trios (Simax Classics – PSC 1165)
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