{"id":8360,"date":"2025-08-01T11:39:40","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T09:39:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.baroniet.no\/rosendal-festival\/grieg-i-hardanger-intervju-med-leif-ove-andsnes\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T11:32:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T09:32:12","slug":"grieg-in-hardanger-interview-with-leif-ove-andsnes","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.baroniet.no\/en\/rosendal-festival\/grieg-in-hardanger-interview-with-leif-ove-andsnes\/","title":{"rendered":"“Grieg in Hardanger” – Interview with Leif Ove Andsnes"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This year\u2019s program simply focuses on Hardanger<\/b>?<\/h3>\n
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The title of the theme, \u201cGrieg in Hardanger,\u201d might sound like a tourist trap. But I think it\u2019s meaningful that in this final festival, we highlight the music from Rosendal\u2019s own region. Hardanger has a very rich folk music tradition, though that\u2019s not what we\u2019re focusing on here\u2014although the folk music clearly shines through in the works of Edvard Grieg and Geirr Tveitt.<\/div>\n
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Grieg\u2019s connection to Lofthus and Hardanger was strong. I was inspired by a booklet Reidar Storaas wrote for the Grieg anniversary in 1993, also titled \u201cGrieg in Hardanger.\u201d That\u2019s when I realised how much Grieg actually composed while in Hardanger\u2014major works like the Holberg Suite, the String Quartet, and so on. Important pieces.<\/div>\n
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Tveitt is perhaps the quintessential Hardanger composer, having lived in Norheimsund for much of his life. During the war, he collected folk tunes from across Hardanger and composed versions of the Folktunes from Hardanger for solo piano and for symphony orchestra.<\/div>\n
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I\u2019ve known Knut Vaage since we studied around the same time at the Bergen Music Conservatory in the late \u201980s\u2014both of us as pianists. It\u2019s been wonderful to see how Knut gradually found his path as a composer. Today he is one of our most versatile Norwegian composers, with a large output in a wide range of genres\u2014from opera to solo works\u2014and using improvisation, electronics and video, always in close dialogue with performers.<\/div>\n
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Like me, he has lived in Bergen for many years, but he grew up in Sunde\u2014not far from Rosendal.<\/div>\n
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We\u2019re performing six of Knut\u2019s works at the festival, including no fewer than three world premieres.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\"Grieg

Edvard Grieg celebrating his birthday in Lofthus 15. June 1896 with: 1. row (from left): Chr Smitt, Tonny Hagerup, Marie Grieg, Johan Halvorsen. 2. row: Frants Beyer, mrs Beyer, John Grieg, Brita Utne, Nina Grieg, Ludwig M\u00fcller. 3. row; mrs Halvorsen, mrs Giertsen, Edvard Grieg, Adelina Hagerup, Herman Hagerup. 4. row; B\u00f8rre Giertsen, mrs Aleksander Bjerke.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n

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Tell us about the works being premiered<\/b><\/h3>\n
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Knut Vaage has written the new pieces for countertenor Daniel S\u00e6ther and the early music ensemble C4. They make up three of the four parts in the cycle \u201cTilstander\u201d, which Knut began with \u201cVintersong\u201d in 2017. The cycle reflects an open approach to the relationship between human beings and nature. The changing seasons form the framework of the large cycle in nature, and the three pieces being premiered at the festival are inspired by spring, summer and autumn.<\/div>\n
Knut has written a beautiful text about these and the other works of his that are being performed at the festival\u2014it\u2019s available on the festival\u2019s website. Highly recommended!<\/div>\n
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By the way, C4 is an ensemble that primarily performs on period instruments. This has also allowed the program to include a fair amount of Baroque music, performed by wonderful musicians who have this style in their blood.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Read more about the compositions of Knut Vaage<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\"Knut<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n
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Regarding Grieg\u2014are you only highlighting his connection to Hardanger<\/b>?<\/h3>\n
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No, we\u2019re also playing music not composed in Hardanger. I\u2019m focusing on two additional aspects: his studies in Leipzig, and his songs.<\/div>\n
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Grieg studied in Leipzig from the age of 15 to 19. In his early works, it\u2019s clear how much he was influenced by Leipzig\u2014the music and the German tradition. We\u2019ll be performing music by Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann during the festival, and Thursday morning\u2019s concert is titled \u201cLeipzig\u201d\u2014a program where we\u2019ll hear Grieg\u2019s early Op. 4 songs alongside works by these German composers.<\/div>\n
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Today, Grieg is internationally known, and works like the Piano Concerto and Peer Gynt music are global hits. But it\u2019s interesting to note how often international audiences are unfamiliar with Grieg\u2019s songs. The reason is, of course, that most of them are set to Norwegian poetry\u2014and few singers outside Scandinavia dare take on Norwegian texts. His Op. 48 songs in German are more commonly performed abroad. They\u2019re wonderful, but many outside Norway don\u2019t know the Vinje songs (op.33) or Haugtussa.<\/div>\n
For me, it is often in his songs that Grieg reaches his deepest emotional depths. His finest songs have a signature just as strong as Schubert\u2019s and Schumann\u2019s most famous lieder.<\/div>\n
We\u2019re performing many of Grieg\u2019s songs at this festival\u2014both well-known and lesser-known ones\u2014with two excellent singers: Mari Eriksmoen and Eirik Gr\u00f8tvedt.<\/div>\n
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See which compositions Grieg created in Hardanger<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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You\u2019re also performing a major piano sonata by Geirr Tveitt\u2014his Sonata No. 29?<\/b><\/h3>\n
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Yes, and imagine\u2014Tveitt composed 30\u201340 piano sonatas, and this is the only one that survives today, after the fire at the Tveit family farm in 1970, where 70\u201380% of all his works were lost in the flames. Fortunately, this large sonata was saved. It was Tveitt\u2019s favourite, and Norsk Musikforlag had already published it in print.<\/div>\n
The sonata is unique in Norwegian musical life. I don\u2019t know of any other Norwegian piano work that is more epic in its form and ambition. Grieg\u2019s Ballade is a journey\u2014but Tveitt\u2019s sonata is on a larger scale. I\u2019ve played it a lot over the past two years, including abroad, and audiences are clearly moved and fascinated by this distinctive music\u2014whether I\u2019m performing it in Barcelona or Baltimore.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\"Geirr Geirr Tveitt (1908-1981) <\/div><\/span>[\/caption]<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n
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The program doesn\u2019t only revolve around Hardanger. Ravel has an anniversary<\/b>?<\/h3>\n
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Yes\u2014he turns 150 this year, and we\u2019re devoting an entire concert on Friday evening to his music. I haven\u2019t played much Ravel myself, but his music has grown in me, and today I\u2019m deeply touched by it. The colours and sensuality of his music are extraordinary. I can go for days thinking about\u2014or hearing in my mind\u2014certain chords and harmonies. It\u2019s like when your mouth remembers the very best flavours from a memorable meal. But Ravel\u2019s music is also deeply emotional. It gets under your skin and often carries a veil of melancholy and depth.<\/div>\n
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This program also features Rebecca Clarke\u2019s Viola Sonata. She was a British composer and also a well-known violist. She played in the orchestra when Ravel conducted in London in 1928. The Viola Sonata is her most famous work. When she won the Eleanor Coolidge Composition Competition with it in 1919, the jury initially didn\u2019t believe she had written it. Several people thought a woman couldn\u2019t have composed such a powerful piece, and suspected that a man\u2014perhaps Ernest Bloch or even Ravel\u2014had used a female pseudonym.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\"Maurice

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n

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And another viola sonata marks the 50th anniversary of Dmitri Shostakovich\u2019s death<\/b>?<\/h3>\n
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Yes, we\u2019re performing his final work\u2014the Viola Sonata\u2014on Saturday evening. It\u2019s a piece that opens vast spaces\u2014emotionally and philosophically. I hope this program can also open up spaces for reflection and empathy in a world marked by conflict and tragedy.<\/div>\n
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The concert begins with a short piano piece by Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov, who had to flee Kyiv as an elderly man shortly after the Russian invasion in 2022. Then we\u2019ll hear some beautiful, at times melancholic, Baroque music; the premiere of Knut Vaage\u2019s \u201cHaust\u201d (Autumn); and finally, Shostakovich.<\/div>\n
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When I scheduled the Viola Sonata for the Saturday evening concert\u2014on August 9\u2014I had no idea that this is actually the exact date of Shostakovich\u2019s death in Moscow, 50 years ago.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\"Dmitrij

Dmitrij Sjostakovitsj DSCH (1906-1975)<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n

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Grande finale on Sunday\u2014it looks like it\u2019ll be a long and rich concert<\/b>?<\/h3>\n
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This is the final Rosendal Chamber Music Festival, and we need to mark it with a proper farewell. Only one concert on Sunday, but it\u2019s a long one\u2014with two intermissions and a highly varied program.<\/div>\n
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We\u2019ll revisit composers who have shaped this year\u2019s festival\u2014among them Mendelssohn, with his incredible String Octet\u2014a classic of chamber music festivals, but one we haven\u2019t performed before in Rosendal. It\u2019s mind-boggling that he wrote it at age 16. Perhaps he is music history\u2019s greatest wunderkind.<\/div>\n
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And we\u2019ll close the festival with an unusual piece: Louis Andriessen\u2019s Workers Union. A piece for open instrumentation, without fixed pitches, but with a strict rhythmic structure. It will be led by five percussionists, and more festival musicians will join in. The work\u2019s title reflects a desire for solidarity and collective action.<\/div>\n
That sense of community is always strong during these festival days\u2014between everyone working for the festival, the musicians, and the audience. The effort and collaboration involved are deeply moving. I hope the festival\u2019s conclusion will feel like a triumph of togetherness.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Finally: the audience is offered a music experience using virtual reality<\/b>?<\/h3>\n
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Yes, this is a small bonus for our audience\u2014a free 15-minute experience that I hope many will take advantage of. My friends in the Mahler Chamber Orchestra have developed a VR project that can be experienced between Thursday and Saturday during the festival. I got to try this a couple of years ago when the project was brand new, and I found it overwhelming. You put on VR goggles and headphones and can move freely in the \u201croom\u201d with the musicians. It\u2019s a string quintet performing the first movement of Mozart\u2019s incredible G minor String Quintet. The sound quality in the headphones is phenomenal, and the experience is spatial\u2014when you move closer to one musician, you hear that person more clearly than the others, just as you would if you were in the room with them.<\/div>\n
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You need to register and choose a time slot on the festival\u2019s website. Only two people can be in the VR space at once, so it\u2019s first come, first served.<\/div>\n
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I was very moved by the experience and highly recommend it to anyone who wants to discover a new way of experiencing great music.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Choose time slot for a unique VR-experience here<\/a><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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