Grieg: Norwegian Folk Tunes and Dances, Op. 17

Last night I listened to some excerpts from Grieg's Norwegian Folk Tunes and Dances, Op. 17, and I found some melodies that sounded familiar to me.  The melodies in pieces XXIII and XXIV are also in the fourth of Grieg's Symphonic Dances on Norwegian Themes, Op. 64.

The melody for Op. 17: XXIII is worth picturing in its entirety since all of it is used on Op. 64: IV.

(notation found here)

I've actually found the melody from measures three to six in two different Grieg pieces, and I've written about them before.  It's in the Symphonic Dances on Norwegian Themes, but it's also in Nineteen Norwegian Folk Tunes, Op. 66: VI. Cow-call and Lullaby:

(click here for a larger image)
(notation found here [Op. 64] and here [Op. 66])

Of course, there are some differences, but the melodies are all very similar.

There's more of a resemblance between Op. 17: XXIII and Op. 64: IV than with Op. 66: VI though because the melody in measures eleven to fifteen is similar to the melody in measures eleven to twenty in the section marked B of Op. 64: IV:

(click here for a larger image)

I haven't thoroughly studied the fourth Symphonic Dance, but I've listened to it enough to become fairly familiar with it.  I'm pretty sure it's in sonata form, and - as occurs with sonata form - these two melodies come back for the second A section.

The B section of the Symphonic Dance shares a melody with Op. 17: XXIV:

In the Symphonic Dance, a very similar melody is in the clarinet and oboe beginning at the Più tranquillo:

(click here for a larger image)

When I originally found the melody that Op. 66: VI. and Op. 64: IV have in common, I was reading a book of Grieg's letters.  I referenced the index of works in the back and found that, as the opus numbers would suggest, they were written around the same time.  The book says the Symphonic Dances, Op. 64 are from 1896, and that the Folk Songs, Op. 66 are from 1896-1898.  Again, as the opus number would suggest, the Folk Tunes and Dances, Op. 17 are much earlier; the book says they're from 1870.  I think Grieg is pretty well-known for using folk tunes in his music, so I find it interesting that he used the same ones almost thirty years apart.

Grieg: Lyric Pieces X, Op. 71: VII. Remembrances

This morning I listened to some more of Grieg's Lyric Pieces for piano.  The seventh piece (Remembrances) in Book X, Op. 71 sounded a bit familiar, and I realized that it's very similar to the first piece (Arietta) in Book I, Op. 12.

I intended to look up the notation for both and compare them, but when I lookt up the notation for Op. 71: VII, I noticed an asterisk after the title:

which lead to a footnote at the bottom of the page:

It's in German:  "Vergl[eich] Lyrische Stücke Heft 1 No. 1 (Arietta)."  Translated, this is "Compare Lyric Pieces Book 1 No. 1 (Arietta)."

I'm glad that footnote was there because the notation is still above my skill level.  I did notice though that Arietta and Remembrances are both in the same key: Eb major.

Most of the books of Grieg's Lyric Pieces that I have are incomplete; I have only excerpts.  This is the case with Book X.  I lookt up the complete book and discovered that Remembrances is the last piece in the book.  Since Book X is also the last book of Grieg's Lyric Pieces, there's a sort of bookending going on.  He starts and ends his Lyric Pieces with a similar-sounding tune.

Rod Argent's Classically Speaking

This morning I listened to some excerpts of Grieg's lyric pieces for piano.  I'm most familiar with the first piece of the first book (Op. 12: I. Arietta) via Rod Argent's recording on Classically Speaking.  Although this was an album entirely of Grieg pieces, after the Arietta, I expected to hear Chopin's Etude in C minor, Op. 25, No. 12 because that's the second track on Argent's Classically Speaking.  I started wondering about the transition between the two pieces and thought there was something more to the relationship between them than just my familiarity with that particular sequencing.

I lookt up the notation for Grieg's Arietta and discovered that it's in Eb major.  As the title of the Chopin piece would suggest, it's in C minor.  C minor and Eb major are relative keys.  Their scales contain all the same notes; they just start in different places.  My expecting the Chopin piece after the Grieg piece revealed a clever bit of sequencing on Argent's part.  There's a relatively smooth transition between the two pieces because they have similar tonalities.

Corelli: 12 Concerti grossi, Op. 6, Concerto No. 12 in F major

Yester-day I listened to Corelli's 12 Concerti grossi, Op. 6.  I noticed something in the first movement of the last concerto (No. 12 in F major), but it's not so much something I want to point out as it is something that confused me.

What I thought I heard (and what checking the score revealed to be true) was pairs of notes played at alternating octaves that trace a diatonic descent.  In the example below, it's in the cello part in measures 19 and 22-23:

(notation found here)

It sounded familiar to me because this is the fourth classical piece I've found that feature in.  I first read about them in Bach's cantata Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4 in John Eliot Gardiner's Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven, and then I discovered they're also in Bach's Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068:

(notation found here [BWV 4] and here [BWV 1068])

Then about four months ago, I found the same feature in Grieg's From Holberg's Time, Op. 40:

(notation found here)

At the time, I was reading a book of Grieg's letters and found one where he mentions Bach's cantatas.  Since he was obviously familiar with Bach and since the Holberg Suite was meant to be written as an evocation of an older style, I postulated that Grieg took that octave-skipping feature from Bach.  Now that I've found it in an-other piece from the same era (the early 18th century), I'm not so sure about that.  As a composer, Bach wasn't well-known in his lifetime, so I don't think that the same feature showing up in Corelli's piece is evidence of his influence.  It seems like that octave-skipping might just have been a common baroque feature.