Well, I like it very much, but not everyone does.  It's a fairly early
work, sometimes criticized for academicism (whatever that's supposed to
mean), and influenced perhaps by the e minor piano sonata of Niels Gade
(op.  28), one of the major Danish composers of an earlier generation.
The first movement - which I once mistakenly (before I had seen the score,
and before someone set me straight) thought had an exposition repeat (that
for some reason no pianist took:), I find to be a really beautiful, compact
sonata-form.  The opening theme may be simple, but it's effective.

The slow movement is genuine Grieg, so to speak, a beautiful
lyric-piece-not-so-named with some mystery to it besides.

The third movement is unusually something of a minuet- this sort of
anachronism was later to become another thread in Grieg's music (the suite
"In Holberg's Time", some of the Peer Gynt music, other works besides have
this strain of the old-times in them- which I for one find quite
attractive.)

The finale I find a little less distinctive, but only a little (I'm a great
fan of this piece in general...  though it's been a while since I've heard
it so if there are inaccuracies above, please forgive.)

There are quite a few recordings.  I have heard recommendations for the
two on Naxos (Gimse, with the cello sonata, and Steen-Nokleberg, part of
a series of the complete piano music), Andsnes on Virgin Classic (the
latter I have heard, I think, and enjoyed much), and others.

Sorry I can't be more help.  Grieg is, beyond the best-known of his works,
rather seriously underrated, I think (paradoxical though such a claim may
seem ...)

Eric Schissel
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