Peter Greve: The Palace of the Dreamking and Other Works
Navona Records

In featuring six compositions of diverse character, The Palace of the Dreamking and Other Works presents a comprehensive cross-section of Peter Greve's body of work. The Netherlands-born Greve (b. 1931) came to composing late, having spent his working life as a chemist and consultant; though he developed musical proficiency (in piano, trumpet, music theory, and conducting) while studying chemistry at the State University of Leiden, it was only after his retirement in 2002 that he was able to dedicate himself to music full-time.

His eclectic output isn't overly derivative, yet the recording's six works do at moments engender associations with the works and styles of other composers, Stravinsky and Bartok among them. The most programmatic of the set is The Palace of the Dreamking, performed by the New Europe Symphony Orchestra with Greve himself conducting. As accounted for by the composer, nine parts make up this eleven-minute ‘symphonic poem,' whose fantastical scenario involves small winged horses called Nightmares who've flown various characters to the Dreamking's palace to experience nightmares under his direction. The design of the music, which is panoramic in orchestral colour and detail, mirrors the narrative and thus assumes a rather soundtrack-like quality. Don't be surprised if your thoughts turn to Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade or Stravinsky's Firebird as Greve's engrossing work unfolds (reference to the Rite of Spring also seems to occur during the seventh part, “The General”), though that in no way detracts from the pleasures it affords.

Differences between the five subsequent pieces are so clear, it's easy to identify the transition from one to the next. Boldly shifting gears from The Palace of the Dreamking, a three-movement Partita scored for an eleven-member brass ensemble is second, contrast again exploited in the opening “Sinfonia,” where a severe theme's followed by a lyrical one, and in the central “Canzon per Sonar (Looking back to Giovanni Gabrieli)” movement, which juxtaposes stately reserve and youthful exuberance. The seven-part Give us Peace, a so-called “Invocation for organ and mixed choir,” distances itself immediately from the Partita in starting with an organ solo before the hushed entrance of the Kühn Mixed Choir, which sings the words “Give us peace” in Latin, Russian, Hebrew, and Arabic. Though the work's humanistic message expresses hope that humanity might eventually reach a state of peace, Greve daringly ventures into atonal territory (e.g., “Devastation,” with its dissonant organ clusters and desperate vocal outpourings), which lends the work an at times unsettling, destabilizing effect.

Written to memorialize a friend's late wife, Greve's Trio for clarinet, violoncello and piano was designed to capture different aspects of her personality, including her sociable character and love of nature and philosophy. In keeping with such a conception, the three movements progress through passages that range from lyrical, idyllic, and melancholy to boisterous and joyful, its movement titles “Reflection (Passacaglia)” and “Dance” alluding to that range. Greve's programmatic bent re-asserts itself for Magic Winter, which draws upon Scandinavian folklore and has to do with a group of trolls attempting to survive the merciless Arctic winter. Scored for string orchestra, the tone of the three-movement piece is brooding and anguished, and moments surface that suggest kinship with Bartok (the Divertimento for String Orchestra and Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta) and Bernard Herrmann (his strings-only Psycho score, alternately haunting and violent in character), making Magic Winter the most emotionally intense of the six works performed. The recording ends with a tribute to Francis Poulenc, Aria pour trompette et orgue, that's scored for organ and trumpet and offers one final surprise in working a boisterous, circus-like episode into its otherwise graceful design.

December 2019