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Reviews: Grieg: Norwegian Dances, Symphonic Dances, Lyric Suite - Ruud

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Reviews: 4

Review by flyingdutchman July 18, 2003 (5 of 7 found this review helpful)
Performance:   Sonics:
Wonderfully alive, full, and vivid recordings. The BIS team captures the orchestra beautifully and without any extreme reverberation or dryness. Of course, I love this music. The melodies and lyrical elements are beautiful and Ruud and his orchestra are obviously the right folks to do this music justice.

Buy this w/o regret. It is a beautiful disc.

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Review by beardawgs November 30, 2003 (3 of 3 found this review helpful)
Performance:   Sonics:
Nothing more to add to Dutchman and Paul, the recording is fantastic and the quality of music… well, these are not the pieces that made Grieg such a popular composer. Two sets of dances are actually more tiring experience, and if it’s not for the excellent playing and even better recording, they would be dead boring. Movements from the Lyric suite are based on Lyric pieces for piano solo, that’s Grieg at his best, but I still prefer the piano original. Overall, a rather non challenging intellectual experience and I presume this will end up as a nice background-dinner-party-wall-paper music in our case.

Apparently, this is just the beginning of the complete Grieg’s orchestral series on BIS. Well done so far, keep ‘em coming!

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Review by nickc April 26, 2004 (4 of 5 found this review helpful)
Performance:   Sonics:
Top notch recording and performance of some admittedly not top notch Grieg. Sound in multi-channel expands gloriously to fill your room. Cellos and basses I have noticed especially seem to benefit from the dsd treatment and, like in the Philips Sibelius violin concerto, you can almost feel what I will call a black mass of sound emanating from your right hand speakers.

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Review by Luukas November 13, 2014 (3 of 3 found this review helpful)
Performance:   Sonics:  
Oh! This is perhaps the best Grieg album in many years! Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra plays like they breathes this music, and Ruud leads his team to the Grieg's musical wonderland.
Norwegian Dances (orchestrated by Hans Sitt) sounds movingly and freshly here. First dance is excellent, and the second dance is lovely. Solo oboist plays beautifully, and the crystal clear recording benefits it. I haven't any comments about third dance, but fourth dance is thrilling. It begins cellos and basses quiet melody with first oboe's and first horn's answers. Ruud follows metronome markings, and the fast maint theme, Presto, is funny and playful. BIS label's engineering is superb.
Symphonic Dances is quite similar work. This is Grieg's own arrangement, and sounds also very good. My own favorite was Bjarte Engeset's interpretation with Royal Scottish Symphony Orchestra (Naxos) but this wins it clearly. Specially the second dance's gently oboe melody is touching. It is simple but so beautiful! I love it.
Lyric Suite is nice bonus. All in all, wonderful Grieg album with outstanding sonics! Highly recommend!

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