Liv Glaser was the first pianist to record the complete Lyric Pieces of Edvard Grieg for RCA in 1963, and here she returns to this wonderful music to celebrate the centenary of Grieg’s death in 1907. On this new CD she has put together a collection of some of the best of these exquisite miniature masterpieces.

The music of Grieg comes from a time when pianos were not so rigidly uniform as they are today. This new recording has been made using an instrument from 1853, where each register has its own individual vocal sound and colour.
Grieg’s creative capacity was strongly influenced by the brighter and darker periods of his life. When his health began to decline and he started to experience depressions, deprived of strength and energy, he was only able to write short compositions like these. He writes in a letter to his publisher “The ten volumes of Lyric Pieces represent a part of my life’s history.”

Since making her debut in 1960 Liv Glaser has been recognized as being amongst the elite of Norwegian pianists, with countless TV and radio concerts and performances. She has toured extensively and given master classes all over the world. Glaser studied with Robert Riefling in Oslo, at the Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique in Paris with the legendary Vlado Perlemuter, later with Wilhelm Kempff. In 1990 she once again became a pupil, taking lessons with Paul Badura-Skoda in Vienna, studying original manuscripts of Mozart at the NMA, Mozarteum in Salzburg, besides in depth studies of the fortepiano (Hammerklavier) with Malcolm Bilson at Cornell University in the United States. This resulted in a recording of Mozart’s complete piano sonatas. Liv Glaser has been teaching at the Norwegian Academy of Music since it was founded in 1973 and became professor there in 1994. In 2005 Liv Glaser received the prestigious Lindeman Prize.