The ''Holberg Suite'', Op. 40, more properly ''From Holberg's Time'' (Norwegian: ''Fra Holbergs tid''), subtitled "Suite in olden style" ( no, Suite i gammel stil, links=no, italics=no), is a
suite
Suite may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
*Suite (music), a set of musical pieces considered as one composition
** Suite (Bach), a list of suites composed by J. S. Bach
** Suite (Cassadó), a mid-1920s composition by Gaspar Cassadó
** ''Suite ...
of five
movements
Movement may refer to:
Common uses
* Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece
* Motion, commonly referred to as movement
Arts, entertainment, and media
Literature
* "Movement" (short story), a short story by Nancy Fu ...
Edvard Grieg
Edvard Hagerup Grieg ( , ; 15 June 18434 September 1907) was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is widely considered one of the foremost Romantic era composers, and his music is part of the standard classical repertoire worldwide. His use of ...
in 1884 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Dano-Norwegian
humanist
Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry.
The meaning of the term "human ...
playwright
Ludvig Holberg
Ludvig Holberg, Baron of Holberg (3 December 1684 – 28 January 1754) was a writer, essayist, philosopher, historian and playwright born in Bergen, Norway, during the time of the Dano-Norwegian dual monarchy. He was influenced by Humanism, ...
(1684–1754).
It exemplifies nineteenth-century music which makes use of musical styles and forms from the preceding century. Although not as famous as Grieg's
incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, or some other presentation form that is not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as t ...
from ''
Peer Gynt
''Peer Gynt'' (, ) is a five- act play in verse by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen published in 1876. Written in Norwegian, it is one of the most widely performed Norwegian plays. Ibsen believed '' Per Gynt'', the Norwegian fairy tale on ...
'', which is itself usually performed as arranged in a pair of suites, many critics regard the works as of equal merit.
Background
The ''Holberg Suite'' was originally composed for the piano, but a year later was adapted by Grieg himself for
string orchestra
A string orchestra is an orchestra consisting solely of a string section made up of the bowed strings used in Western Classical music. The instruments of such an orchestra are most often the following: the violin, which is divided into first ...
. The suite consists of an introduction and a set of dances. It is an early essay in
neoclassicism
Neoclassicism (also spelled Neo-classicism) was a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassicism ...
, an attempt to echo as much as was known in Grieg's time of the music of Holberg's era.
Structure
The movements of the suite are:
Piano version and string orchestration
"The music is thought out most idiomatically for both forces." However, the version for string orchestra differs in a number of respects from the solo piano original. The prelude in the piano version opens with a series of
arpeggio
A broken chord is a chord broken into a sequence of notes. A broken chord may repeat some of the notes from the chord and span one or more octaves.
An arpeggio () is a type of broken chord, in which the notes that compose a chord are played ...
s:
The orchestral version replaces these with chords repeated in a dactylic rhythm:
Another striking transformation occurs in bars 31 to 34 of the prelude, which was originally conceived for piano as follows:
Grieg's orchestration develops this into a series of chords played by divisi violins. To this he adds a new
counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more musical lines (or voices) which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. It has been most commonly identified in the European classical tra ...
consisting of scales played
pizzicato
Pizzicato (, ; translated as "pinched", and sometimes roughly as "plucked") is a playing technique that involves plucking the strings of a string instrument. The exact technique varies somewhat depending on the type of instrument :
* On bowe ...
A Far Cry
A Far Cry is a Boston-based chamber orchestra. The orchestra is self-conducted and consists of 18 musicians called "The Criers". It was founded in 2007 by a group of 17 musicians in Boston. The orchestra rehearses in Jamaica Plain and has been t ...
from the
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts, which houses significant examples of European, Asian, and American art. Its collection includes paintings, sculpture, tapestries, and decorative arts. It was found ...
in
MP3
MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...