Abstract
Historical recordings embody the material traces of legendary performers from the past and can offer an inspirational resource for modern interpreters. Despite limitations, early recordings can provide a rich and reliable source of information for the performer-scholar. This article is an empirical investigation of Edvard Grieg’s performance style from the historical recordings of two of his Lyric Pieces: ‘Butterfly’, Op. 43 No. 1, and ‘To the Spring’, Op. 43 No. 6. First, taking a bottom-up approach and starting from the composer’s recordings, salient gestures in Grieg’s performance style are traced using empirical techniques of beat-tempo analysis. Second, exploratory Principal Components Analysis (PCA) is used to compare the composer’s timing profiles to those of other pianists in the sample. Results show that Grieg’s extreme flexibility in performance tempo distinguishes him from other interpreters. Specifically, the rhythmic pull of the principal motif in ‘Butterfly’, Op. 43 No. 1, and the rhetorical inflection of the melody in ‘To the Spring’, Op. 43 No. 6, appear to be idiomatic features of Grieg’s style.