Grieg: Cello Sonata, String Quartet
If you're familiar with Grieg's piano concerto, you'll hear its melodic fingerprints (influenced by Norwegian folk dance tunes) throughout the present chamber works, notably in the Cello Sonata's first movement and the G Minor String Quartet's Intermezzo. The Sonata stands out for Truls Mørk's seamless bow arm, cutting edge fortes that never take a vulgar leap, and soft playing that whispers with fullness of body. His pianist, Håvard Gimse, proves an incisive equal partner, rather than deferential accompanist. For all its fullness of texture and quasi-orchestral scope, the quartet's abundant lyrical ideas linger longest in your inner ear. Mørk and colleagues offer a hard-nosed, terse performance characterized by gaunt, slashing double-stops and a less genial mindset than the Auryn Quartet's wistful slides and looser-limbed phrasing (on the CPO label). The quartet is well engineered in a resonant space, but the Sonata's drier sonics, by contrast, sound comparatively constricted.--Jed Distler