Classical Music | Soprano

Recorded on 08/01/2012, uploaded on 12/04/2012

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Edvard Grieg was a master of the miniature. Except for his well-known Piano Concerto in A minor and a handful of other works, he ventured little towards the large-scale forms that were the staple of so many composers during the 19^th century. Instead, Grieg composed mostly in the smaller forms, such as his numerous “Lyric Pieces” and his Norwegian folksongs and dances for piano. In the realm of vocal music, he also composed a substantial amount of songs. The 6 Songs, op. 48 was composed, with the exception of the first two songs, during August 1889, a period in which Grieg was giving frequent piano recitals and often was unable to find significant time to compose. Interestingly, they are the first poems in German Grieg had set to music since his earlier opus 4 collection composed some twenty years earlier. Nevertheless, they are often heard today in a Norwegian translation by Nordahl Rolfsen.

The final song of the collection, “Ein Traum” (“The Dream”), based on a poem by Friedrich Bodenstedt, tells of a young man who dreams of falling in love with a beautiful woman amidst the pastoral setting of burgeoning spring, and then finds that his dream becomes true. Grieg’s setting begins in a pleasant and radiant D major, with gently undulating triplets arpeggios underpinning the vocalist’s affectionate melody. Expectancy fills the music until the fourth stanza when the arpeggios become incessantly repeated chords, and Grieg begins progressing towards a dramatic and powerful climax at the close of the fifth and final stanza. Following the vocalist’s ecstatic culmination on a high A, the piano then provides a vigorous rush of reiterated tonic chords, flavored with a chromatic oscillation on the dominant, which fill the song’s enraptured final measures.       Joseph DuBose

_______________________________

Ein Traum, Op. 48, No. 6

A Dream  Edvard Grieg

I once had a beautiful dream:
I was in love with a fair-haired young woman,
we were in a green forest glade,
it was warm spring weather,

the buds were sprouting, the brook was running strong,
the sounds of the distant village could be heard,
we were full of joy,
immersed in bliss.

And even more beautiful than the dream
was what occurred in reality:
it was in a green forest glade
it was warm spring weather,

the buds were sprouting, the brook was running strong,
the sounds of the distant village reached our ears --
I held you tight, I held you long,
and now will never again let you go!

Oh the spring-green glade
is alive in me for all time!
That is where reality became a dream
and the dream became reality!

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.