This classic early stereo recording (1955-1957) has been cut at EMI’s Abbey Road Studios from the original EMI master tapes and pressed on 180-gram vinyl on original EMI presses at The Vinyl Factory in Hayes, England. It features the original album artwork.

Sir Thomas Beecham’s influence on classical music during a span of several decades across the twentieth century was unparalleled.

The Norwegian Poet and Playwright Henrik Ibsen wrote Peer Gynt in 1867, but it was not until 1876 that an abridged version, with incidental music by Edvard Grieg, was produced at the Christiania Theatre. Peer Gynt, fashioned from Norwegian folkfore, is a Poetic Fantasy based on a character of the same name, who appears in the role of a great hunter, and slayer of Trolls in Absjornsen’s “Norwegian Fairy Tales”.

Edvard Grieg, intensely nationalistic and saturated with Norwegian folk-music, had already made his mark in the musical world with his Piano Concerto in A minor, and his delightful songs and small scale works, for which he had a particular genius. The two orchestral suites made from the Peer Gynt music soon took their place amongst the popular in the world. (Although not everyone knows the fantastic adventures of Peer Gynt, every music lover knows the music written for him.)

The first concert music to be heard by Sir Thomas Beecham was that of Edvard Grieg. He became devoted to this composer’s music making his recordings unequalled. This album contains perhaps the most glorious performances of Peer Gynt music ever recorded.