Eivind Groven – Wolfgang Plagge

“A national achievement of incalculable value”

Eivind Groven´s Symphony No. 2 was premiered by the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra in 1946 to an overwhelming reception from both the critics and the audience. A torchlight parade was held in his honor and he was conveyed with much pomp to the Student Center, where he was hailed by students and others. The press joined in, describing the symphony in such laudatory terms as “a gigantic success” and “a national achievement of incalculable value”. The pianist Wolfgang Plagge and Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, under conductor Ole Kristian Ruud, have recorded this highly successful work for this album. Furthermore, they have also recorded Groven´s long, complicated and advanced Piano Concerto, a work unique among the composer´s works by virtue of its concentrated thematic material and its rich expressive register, which ranges from the playfully suggestive to the bitterly melancholy.