Edvard Grieg

Air

In 1884 Edvard Grieg composed the ‘Holberg Suite’, subtitled ‘Suite in olden style’. It’s a suite of five movements based on eighteenth-century dance forms, written to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Dano-Norwegian humanist playwright Ludvig Holberg. Although not as famous as Grieg's incidental music from ‘Peer Gynt’, which is itself usually performed as arranged in a pair of suites, many critics regard the works as of equal merit. The ‘Holberg Suite’ was originally composed for the piano, but a year later it was adapted by Grieg himself for string orchestra. Italian arranger Marco Tamanini transcribed the fourth movement 'Air' for a Symphonic Band.