Grieg's Piano Concerto

"Black bread with oysters and caviar" - this is how Edvard Grieg once described his music with a hint of irony: highly elaborate, in other words, but with a clear nod at Norwegian folk music, and his Piano Concerto is the work that embodies this style to perfection. The concerto brought the 25-year-old composer his breakthrough and the recognition of such famous colleagues as Franz Liszt, who immediately played it at sight. The sumptuous score with its cascades of notes and its marvellous lyrical moments is one of Grieg’s showpieces.