Grieg - Piano Concerto [Bakkelund/Gunther Hegge-Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra]This disc is turning out to be a treasure, the booklet picture is one of the best in these RCA Classical Navigator series, a wonderful map of southern Norway, nice and crisp, lovely angled lines, and nice colours too.
This Concerto was recorded in 1959, however it's a very good sound indeed, the piano seems to be more upfront than the orchestra, but beautifully caught, of course there's analogue hiss, but it's not particularly distracting.
Kjell Bakkelund is a Norwegian pianist, born in 1930, he passed away 6 years ago, he made this recording when he was 29.
This time i just loved the slow movement, there's a deep but gentle passion there, it can take your breath away, it's only a short movement, about 6 minutes long, but is packed to the hilt with a beautiful aching tune, even the intro without the piano conveys that passion [0:00-2:11], but it's when the piano enters that a magic really begins [2:11+], it's so dreamy, and when it plays the opening again [2:52+], there's some great use of the treble on the keyboard, the horns make quite an impression in this movement [4:14+ & 5:28+], creating a nice autumn golden feeling in the coda, a lovely 6 minutes.
Here's Thibaudet playing the slow movement on YouTube, with Dudamel conducting.
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