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Concerto for piano and orchestra in b minor

on fragments of an unfinished piano concerto by Edvard Grieg op.16 (1997)

> Introduction
> The fragments
> Performances

This work was written in 1997 for the Third International Competition for Composers organised by the Oslo Grieg Society.

Edvard Grieg wrote his famous piano concerto in A minor in 1868, at the age of 25. Later he started working on a second piano concerto in B minor. This work was never finished and only the sketches reproduced on the following pages remain.

The object of the competition was to write a work for piano and orchestra including elements from these sketches, freely adapted. In my contribution, I nevertheless tried to respect the style and the harmonic and melodic idioms so typical of the great Norwegian master, as well as to make the widest use of the thematic material he left behind.

The Concerto in B minor is in one large movement in sonata form, where an adagio, a scherzo and a cadenza take the place of the customary development.

There are many links with the work of Grieg: the adagio in G major is reminiscent of the string writing in the Holberg Suite and the scherzo is inspired by the numerous pieces in which Grieg depicted the trolls, those legendary inhabitants of the Norwegian mountains. At the midst of this scherzo, a folk-like section features a mock springar (a Norwegian folkdance in ¾) which is reminiscent of the piano writing of the Slåtter op.72.

Lastly, there are also many links with the A minor Concerto itself, e.g. the same instrumentation, the opening timpani roll and the climactic recapitulation of the main theme at the end of the work.