This young man (b.2002) must be the youngest professional solo performer of this edition of the VIAF. He is also the recent winner of Norway’s national music championship competition. As expected he has boundless energy but one coupled with a deep sensitivity which made for yet another exciting festival event.

Tall and dressed in sombre black he had a commanding presence sitting at the piano and launching into Chopin’s Nocturne in D flat Major, Op 27 n.2 (1836). This is not only one of the best-loved nocturnes Chopin composed but also of his whole legacy. Simply with a continuously tender streak, sensitive and beautiful, clear and serene offset by a briefly turbulent passage to eventually return to the initially calm waters There was no applause at the end.

Certainly not for lack of appreciation. I think we must have been dazzled into silence and seconds later the young pianist continued his programme with more Chopin, turning to the Ballade n.3 in A flat Major Op. 47 (1841). Chopin’s four ballads are considered as reflections on his friend Adam Mickiewicz’s (and Poland’s national poet) epic work. Yet Ballade n.3 is much less agitated and turbulent than the other three. Opening with an almost gentle knocking at the door as an introduction it goes into a phase underlined by a slightly rocking melody at a seemingly soft trot. This rhythm remains dominant even in later evidently turbulent passages. The performance reached high levels of tension and the pianist was so passionately involved that one could hear him softly humming a few notes. The return of the opening theme led to no distinctly new section. It led to fast, restlessly and rather long explosive climax. Made one see reason in Maria Frendo’s note that ” ..it suggests frustrated, passionate love rather than the high tragedy of the other Ballades”.

Mikkel Berg-Eriksen then took the audience back sixty-four years, to 1777 when Mozart (1756-91) composed his Piano Sonata n.9 in D Major, K. 311 when he was 21, just a year younger than this evening’s protagonist. In standard three-movement form, Mikkel Berg-Eriksen adjusted well to this different style. Not only dealt but he dealt very well with quite a few technical passages in the opening Allegro con spirito. The central Andante con espressione revealed just that in the pianist’s interpretation. The final Rondo: Allegro was a breezy, happy jaunt.

As expected the pianist’s last choice was his own national composer, Edvard Hagerup Grieg (1843-1907). A renowned pianist, Grieg composed dozens of piano pieces. A set of six of them were composed as Lyric Pieces, Op. 65 (1892).

The pianist delved deep into each piece of the set which is full of different emotions. Youthful memories are tapped from Frå Ungdomsdagene. Bondens sang is based on a peasant folk dance. Tungsind is darkly melancholic. Salon is self-explanatory: meant to be intimate. Balladetone has a structure hinting at a chorale, marked by a sadly melancholic atmosphere.

The last piece, Bryllupsdag på Troldhaugen or Wedding at Troldaugen is the last and most popular piece. Although it actually refers to Grieg and his cousin-wife Nina Hagerup’s wedding silver jubilee, the music remains jolly and festive, even march-like at moments. Held at the house the couple had just outside Bergen where the couple are buried in a rock-cut tomb on the cliff face of Troldhaugen, first Edvard in 1907 then Nina in 1935.

Audience appreciation reached a high peak and the next work was the pianist’s own. He introduced his Bøygen Op.10 (2023). He explained the title as being the name of a very well-known gnome-like creature common in Scandinavian mythology. Despite many dark moments things are never as bad as one thinks. The rest was left to one’s imagination. The work began in the darkest possible way, remaining always in the lower keyboard and at that the lowest part of it. Gradually there were tentative hints at the upper reaches and this developed in an interaction which ended up exploiting EVERY single note. The turbulence ebbed and flowed in frequency until a final, great climax reached a sort of suspended finish.

Reaction was even more enthusiastic and the pianist launched into an unintroduced encore.

It sounded pleasant, late Romantic at first a few touches of Chopin but it was not. Then a hint of Grieg.

After the performance I had to “wring” details about the whom and the what of the matter. The pianist obliged by saying the piece was apt to the ocasion because it is called “Good Night”.

The composer turned out to be Agathe Backer-Grønntahl (1847-1907), an almost exact contemporary of Grieg’s. As I found out late last night, she is Norway’s most famous woman composer, also successful concert pianist and pupil of Liszt. Interest in her unjustly neglected works has changed to revival of them which are being re-printed and also recorded. One ALWAYS learns!

Albert George Storace