Grieg:
Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16
Schubert:
Wanderer Fantasie in C Major, Op 15 (D 760)

Premiered in 1869, Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor is one of the few compositions he conceived on a large scale. He tried his hand at operas and symphonies, but – freethinker that he was – he did not particularly care for the straitjacket of being tied to forms. Though the concerto includes intentional references to Norwegian folk music, a close connection to German Romanticism is also apparent, as are undeniable parallels to Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto. The enormous technical demands of Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy have cast the work as one of the showpieces of solo piano repertoire. “Just let the devil play that stuff”, Schubert himself allegedly once said. The virtuoso quality of the piece was certainly the reason why Franz Liszt was so enthusiastic about it. The fantasia’s four movements blend into one another, corresponding to the structure of a piano sonata. Although Grieg does use traditional forms, such as sonata form, fugue and variation form, he either does not develop them as expected, or abandons them in order to pursue a totally different course. Pianist Oleg Maisenberg, now aged 78, is able to look back on an impressive worldwide career. He’s accompanied on this album by the equally successful conductor Adam Fisher and the former SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden and Freiburg.