How to Listen to Great Music (2) Grieg

Our second video in this series continues our survey of Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, this time with the number known as "Ase's Death." The unique musical quality that this piece illustrates with incredible specificity is: HARMONY. Great music, naturally, has great harmony, by which we mean personal, distinctive, affecting, and expressive. Why it has this effect on us we have no idea--it's a mystery--but you don't have to know anything about the how and why to be touched and thrilled by an especially powerful use of harmony, as here. Musical Examples courtesy of Naxos Records