The mid-1870s was a troubling period for Norway's pre-eminent composer Edvard Grieg.
His parents had both died recently. He and his wife could not have children, though the marriage was in trouble anyway. And although he was adored by the public, who loved his sky-blue popular melodies and the short forms in which he wrote, he had some doubts about his music.
Grieg eschewed the heavyweight intellectualism of the Austro-German tradition, seeking instead a model that could be derived from his native Norwegian folk culture. At the same time, however, he was concerned that the very miniaturism which made him so popular was limiting him, and he wrote about what he perceived as his inability to deal with large-scale musical forms.
It was a restless time for a man who, in any case, was a restless spirit. He had itchy feet: whenever he was in one place he wanted to be in another. According to one writer, there were only two places where Grieg was at home. One was on stage, playing or conducting his music. The other was out of society, seeking space in the Jotunheimen Mountains (Home of the Giants) in western Norway.
That's a spectacular area. I knew it intimately a long time ago. Its main features are the two highest mountains in northern Europe, Galdhopiggen and Glittertind, and a sensational glacier called Svellnosbreen. It's rocky, arduous terrain, and I can't imagine how close Grieg might have got to it: he was not robust, having had a defective lung since childhood.
Anyway, in this difficult period of his life, Grieg, at 32 and in his native Bergen, confronted one of his musical demons and set about writing a large-scale piano piece. The result was his Ballade, opus 24.
It's dark, in G minor, and runs at 20 minutes. It's his biggest piano piece, a theme and 14 variations on a mountain folk tune. It's not very cheery, a bit bleak and seldom played (though I heard it recently in Perth). It's a great masterpiece and there's a fine, inexpensive recording of the Ballade on Naxos.
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