Edvard Hagerup Grieg (1843 – 1907) was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is widely considered one of the leading Romantic era composers, and his music is part of the standard classical repertoire worldwide. His use of Norwegian folk music in his own compositions brought the music of Norway to fame, as well as helping to develop a national identity, much as Jean Sibelius did in Finland and Bed?ich Smetana in Bohemia. He is the most celebrated person from the city of Bergen, with numerous statues which depict his image, and many cultural entities named after him: the city's largest concert building (Grieg Hall), its most advanced music school (Grieg Academy) and its professional choir (Edvard Grieg Kor). The Edvard Grieg Museum at Grieg's former home Troldhaugen is dedicated to his legacy.

Grieg composed the incidental music for Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt, which includes the excerpts "In the Hall of the Mountain King" and "Morning Mood". In an 1874 letter to his friend Frants Beyer, Grieg expressed his unhappiness with "Dance of the Mountain King's Daughter", one of the movements in the Peer Gynt incidental music, writing "I have also written something for the scene in the hall of the mountain King – something that I literally can't bear listening to because it absolutely reeks of cow-pies, exaggerated Norwegian nationalism, and trollish self-satisfaction! But I have a hunch that the irony will be discernible."

Grieg's Holberg Suite was originally written for the piano, and later arranged by the composer for string orchestra. Grieg wrote songs in which he set lyrics by poets Heinrich Heine, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Henrik Ibsen, Hans Christian Andersen, Rudyard Kipling and others. Russian composer Nikolai Myaskovsky used a theme by Grieg for the variations with which he closed his Third String Quartet. Norwegian pianist Eva Knardahl recorded the composer's complete piano music on 13 LPs for BIS Records from 1977 to 1980. The recordings were reissued during 2006 on 12 compact discs, also on BIS Records. Grieg himself recorded many of these piano works before his death in 1907. Pianist Bertha Tapper edited Grieg’s piano works for publication in America by Oliver Ditson.

Feeble and ailing, Grieg produced little in his final years aside from these seven mood pieces for piano. For the set, he dipped into sketches going back as far as 1867, but he did all the real work on the pieces in the early years of the twentieth century. Grieg intended to produce a suite of items larger in scale than his popular Lyric Pieces, but although his tone here is more serious, in truth these constitute only a minor enlargement of scope. Grieg was an expert miniaturist and folklorist and he put both strengths to use in this suite, nearly his swan song. The nostalgic first movement, "Resignation," expresses longing for his Danish friend and fellow composer Julius Röntgen. It's a very brief piece, with a slightly agitated section in the middle. "Scherzo-Impromptu" is a playful piece hinting at Grieg's Norwegian style; it's basically monothematic, but contrasting treatments of the theme (including a thoughtful passage near the end) give it an episodic quality. "A Ride at Night" is the most substantial item in the set, a nearly five-minute tone poem for piano lacking a specific program, but initially evoking such terrifying nocturnal equestrian excursions as Liszt's Mazeppa and Sibelius' Night Ride & Sunrise. At least that's true of the fast outer sections, with their sinister harmonic touches; the middle is an incongruously innocent respite, as if the horse had paused for a snack in a moonlit meadow. The flowing, pastoral "Folk Melody" borrows a ram's horn tune from the Valdres district, which Grieg found in L.M. Lindeman's collection of folk songs. The fifth movement, "Study (Homage to Chopin)," is a virtuosic interlude that had its origins in Grieg's 1867 sketches for his first set of Lyric Pieces. "Students' Serenade" employs singsong melodies tucked amid dark introductory and bridge material that sounds strangely ominous. The concluding "Mountaineer's Song" is a nationalist piece, modal and haunting, evoking Norway's rugged landscape with wandering melodies and unsettled harmonies.

Source: Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edvard_Grieg).

Although originally composed for Solo Piano, I created this Interpretation of "Scherzo-Impromptu"from "Moods" (Op. 73 No. 2) for String Quartet (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).