Grieg’s Klokkeklang: Foreign yet familiar
Bells… What can be more straightforward in music than representing bells? If music can represent anything, it is bells. So what makes Grieg’s bells sound so queer and so… unGrieglike? This is the question I’m trying to answer while wondering whether the imitative notes are meant to represent some extra-musical reality, or merely an impression of it, swirling in the composer’s head.