Edvard Grieg, 1843-1907

String Quartet No. 2 in F Major (Unfinished), 1891

Edvard Grieg is the most well known Norwegian composer associated with the nationalistic trend in Romantic music in the latter part of the 19th century. Despite such blockbuster favorites as the Piano Concerto in a minor and the incidental music to Peer Gynt (particularly Morning Mood and The Hall of the Mountain King), Grieg is especially prized for his intimate musical miniatures: his art songs and his numerous Lyrical Pieces for solo piano. He wrote a small body of distinctive chamber music including sonatas for violin and cello, a one movement piano trio and two works for string quartet. Grieg wrote his only complete quartet, the String Quartet in g minor, in 1878. It garnered the admiration of Debussy and clearly influenced his own quartet in the same key written several years later. Ravel once said that nothing he wrote was very far from Grieg’s influence. « more »