Pianist Andrew Staupe Brings Grieg Concerto to Life
March 9, 2017
On March 26, 2017 professional pianist Andrew Staupe will join Kenwood Symphony Orchestra at the Ives Auditorium for a performance of Edvard Greig’s Piano Concerto in A minor. Like Staupe, Grieg was a gifted pianist and composed the piece—his only concerto—with the intent of playing it himself. In other words, he composed the piece to showcase both the piano and pianist.
The Composer
Born in Bergen, Norway in 1843, Grieg learned piano from his mother at age six. By the time Edvard was 15, his parents, at the urging of a family friend, sent him to Leipzig Conservatory in Germany. After more than four years of intensive study, Grieg emerged with a compositional style based on the Germanic romantic tradition. Norwegian folk music then gradually permeated this broad foundation to create a uniquely nationalistic blend.
Grieg wrote the Piano Concerto in A minor during 1868 while he was on holiday in Denmark. Herald Herresthal, a professor at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Olso, describes the piece as Grieg’s “first great masterpiece”—a work that has since entered “the international repertoire of piano music,” but evokes in pianists and listeners “strong associations with Norway.”
The Concerto
The concerto has three movements: the first and third have a lively tempo, and the middle movement, which shifts from A minor to D-flat major, moves more slowly. The piece has elements reminiscent of Robert Schumann, but also contains the Scandinavian flavor typical in much of Grieg’s work, as well as nods to Franz Liszt‘s passionate romanticism.
As an accomplished pianist, Andrew Staupe has played pieces by Schumann and Liszt in concert. He has also won high accolades for his “immaculate and nimble” playing as in this Star Tribune article. During the March 26 mid-afternoon concert (3:00 p.m.), Staupe will deftly meld together both the traditional musical forces that shaped the concerto’s composer as well as the core national identity that defines Edvard Grieg’s work.
Tickets for the event are at masonicheritagecenter.org.
Watch Andrew play a piece from Frédéric Chopin at a venue in Paris on YouTube.