Alexander Ullman - Grieg (CD)

Brtish pianist Alexander Ullman, presents a program of Edvard Grieg's Moods, Songs and Lyric Pieces. The prize of the album, Alexander's own transcriptions of music from the Peer Gynt Suite No.1, which draws out the color of the orchestra from the piano, perhaps more than the composer's own. Like Chopin, Grieg was more comfortable creating exquisite miniatures rather than large scale orchestral works. Both produced concertos for the piano, and Grieg's example is one of the most popular in the repertoire, but it is in his small-scale solo works that his poetic musical expression had free reign. Alexander Ullman plays Book 10, Moods, and seven pieces from 1907, probably the last music Grieg composed. The program also includes a selection of songs arranged by the composer for solo piano.