Andante con moto EG 116

Edvard Grieg is known primarily for his orchestral works, his songs and his numerous piano miniatures. Apparently during 1878 he began working on a piano trio but only managed to complete one movement, the Andante con moto in c minor. The manuscript was discovered posthumously by Grieg’s Dutch colleague and close friend of many years, Julius Röntgen. He subsequently wondered whether Grieg would have wanted to publish the trio “fragment,” and so it lay unpublished until 1978 when it was placed in the context of the complete Grieg Edition, a full catalog of his work. Comments in Grieg’s own hand on the manuscript suggest that he was not yet done with even this single movement: he hoped to shorten the middle section. In this sense, it is perhaps most appropriate to regard the movement as a fair draft, a peak into the creative mind of a composer mid-process, where circumstances have left the process frozen in suspended animation. We can only savor this piece as it stands like a compelling, partial treasure from an archeological dig, a fragment of an ideal vase complete only in Grieg’s own mind.