This music takes me to another place consistently, a place ancient, undisturbed and full of light. No other orchestra played it as caringly and urgently as the SFS in recent memory. On its heel is “Prelude to Act II,” a piece using the same motif but taking on a deeper, more focused sensibility. Hearing it, one questions how music so delightful could be omitted in the Suites and will proceed to cherish the experience. Instead of using the Suites, de Waart decided to use both Suites and then add:Īlbeit that the SFS’s performance of the whole recording is spirited and yet measured, “Prelude to Act I,” the opener to the whole disc is a particular treat for it is a rarity to be included. Here the San Francisco Symphony circa 1983, rather obscure on the international scene and having freshly settled into the spanking new home of the Davies Symphony Hall three years prior, embarked upon a journey under the baton of a very young Edo de Waart in his forties that unbeknownst to both would culminate in a classic of ages. The very popular melodies of “In the hall of the mountain king” and “Prelude to Act IV (Morning Mood)” are well known far and wide and are in Suite No. A complete recording of Opus 23 would contain 26 movements and 90 minutes of music, but Grieg later grouped it into two Suites, namely the Suite No. The recording was notable for its very unique billing of “excerpts” and not of a choice of either of the two official suites penned by the composer himself. Two elements of this recording stood out instantly at the time of its release. Philips had also started marketing its first-generation CD100 CD player the same year. In 1983 at the height of digital recording craze, Philips issued a digital recording of Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt incidental music to the 1867 play by the composer’s countryman, Henrik Ibsen.