Richly Nuanced Grieg Interpretations

«Bergen pianist Rune Alver has just released his album “Le nouveau Grieg”. It features his playing of Grieg’s Norwegian Peasant Dances and Lyric Pieces on Grieg’s grand piano at Troldhaugen. A wonderful, richly nuanced Grieg album»

Nina Krohn, NRK Classical

No Smallfry at the Piano

«Pianist Rune Alver is no smallfry. In his concert at the University of Oslo’s Great Hall he succeeded in impressing the audience with both his piano technique and his ability to shape the music. Today he can be counted among the cream of young Norwegian pianists.»

Torkil Baden, VG

FEDRENES FJELL

«[...] Rune Alver´s playing is really good, pointed, varied and serious.»

Erling Sandmo, Morgenbladet

No Smallfry at the Piano

«Convincing Schumann interpretation by Rune Alver. Schumann’s Fantasie Op. 17 is dedicated to Liszt who was of the opinion that the piece was not suitable for public presentation. Rune Alver does not share this opinion. On this new CD, his interpretive imagination illuminates the wild, frenzied qualities that must have once brought on Liszt’s hesitation. We hear unabashed romantic yearning and passion, ruins, fragments and irony – all wrapped in a delicate musical articulation. In the first movement, Alver keeps up the tension through all the wave movements right into the concluding Beethoven quotation. He also successfully brings out the contrast between the wild Florestan and the mild Eusebius in the two subsequent movements where Schumann portrays his split personality.

There is more romance on the album – two melancholy pieces by Chopin, his Mazurka Op. 6 No. 1, and Ballade No. 3 in A flat major. The final track is Blue Traces by Torstein Aagaard-Nilsen – a lyrical contemporary composition that fits perfectly with the romantic context»

Peter Larsen, Bergen Tidende

«Rune Alver gave the ultimate proof of his high artistic level in his magnificent interpretation of Beethoven's Sonata in B-major, The Hammerklavier Sonata, one of the greatest works of its kind in Music Literature. Here he fully mastered the great span between for instance the energetically demanding Allegro of the first movement and the uniquely beautiful third movement. Here Rune Alver presented convincing evidence of his willingness and ability to form, which is characteristic trait of all major muscians»

A. Chr. Meyer, Morgenavisen Bergen

«It is especially the rhythmic drive in some of the Norwegian Peasant Dances that is the distinctive feature of this album. One good example is “Jon Væstafæs Springar”, in which Rune Alver treads the bass line in a refreshing and elegant three-quarter time, while letting the right hand trill and sing like a light-hearted dairymaid at the summer chalet»

Nina Krohn, NRK Classical