Classical Hour
Nathalie Stutzmann
Nikolai Lugansky Richard Wagner
Edvard Grieg

Richard Wagner (1813–1883) conducted the Prelude to Act I from his opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg for the first time in 1862, six years before the opera’s full premiere. This is the only Wagner opera based on historical figures, with the main inspiration being Hans Sachs—a shoemaker, poet, and composer who lived in 16th-century Nuremberg.

Edvard Grieg (1843−1907) composed his Piano Concerto in A minor in the summer of 1868 in the idyllic surroundings of Søllerød, Denmark. The following year, Norwegian pianist Edmund Neupert performed the premiere in Copenhagen. Grieg was unable to attend, but Neupert wrote to him afterward: “The triumph I celebrated was truly magnificent. Already after the cadenza in the first movement, the audience broke into a veritable storm of applause.”

Over the next 39 years, Grieg revised the concerto seven times, making around 300 major and minor changes. He completed the final version just before his death in 1907, and it remains the standard edition today. Two years later, it became the first piano concerto ever recorded, and it has retained its place as one of the world’s most beloved concertos.