Rune Alver has many years of experience performing Grieg’s music at the Edvard Grieg Museum Troldhaugen. He maintains an extensive concert schedule as soloist and chamber musician with performances throughout Europe and in Russia, China and South Africa. In 2013 he performed a solo recital at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Rune Alver collaborates with leading musicians, actors and visual artists in traditional and more experimental contexts. He has recorded a number of critically acclaimed albums, among them the complete piano works of Johannes M. Rivertz and David Monrad Johansen. The CD Et kjærlighetsdikt (A Love Poem) with music by Catharinus Elling was released in 2019. Recently the complete piano music by the female Norwegian composer Signe Lund was released in three albums.
Some important performances
- Glinka Music Museum (Moscow)
- Rachmaninov Concert Hall (Moscow)
- Sviatoslav Richter Museum (Moscow)
- Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall (New York)
- Urness Recital Hall (Minnesota)
- Invalides, Salon d'Honneur (Paris)
- Radio France (Paris)
- Conservatoire Maurice Ravel Levallois Perret (Paris)
- Joseph-Joachim-Konzertsaal (Berlin)
- Kammersaal Universität der Künste (Berlin)
- Mendelssohn Haus (Leipzig)
- Grieg-Begegnungsstätte (Leipzig)
- Hochschule für Musik und Theater Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (Leipzig)
- White Box Museum Chaoyang District (Beijing)
- TCG Nordica (Kunming)
- Edvard Grieg Museum Troldhaugen (Bergen)
- Harald Sæverud Museum Siljustøl (Bergen)
- Fartein Valen Heimen (Valevåg)
- Bergen International Festival (Bergen)
- Festspillene i Nord-Norge (Harstad)
- Belfast International Arts Festival (Belfast)
- Sumartonar (Faroe Islands)
- Lund-dagene (Farsund)
- Hamsundagene (Hamarøy)
Albums
Signe Lund - Malgré moi
Enjoy listening to pianist Rune Alver beautifully interpreting these songs composed by Signe Lund.
Impromptu - Works By The Young Signe Lund - Alver, Rune (piano)
Impromptu – Works By The Young Signe Lund” is the second in a series of three releases featuring the composer’s total output for piano.
Études poétiques: Works by Signe Lund - Alver, Rune (piano)
On his new CD, Études poétiques, pianist Rune Alver presents the listener with piano pieces of Signe Lund (1868 – 1950).
Catharinus Elling Works for Piano: Et Kjærlighetsdikt - Alver, Rune (piano)
Rune Alver’s new release «Et kjærlighetsdikt – Catharinus Elling Works for Piano» offers piano music with great diversity. Here you can listen to charming, precisely formulated short pieces and large-scale piano works.
Fedrenes fjell
David Monrad Johansen (1888-1970) Complete piano music
Lawo classics LWC 1101, Recorded in Sofienberg Church 2016
Jolasong
Norwegian Christmas music from different periods. Christmas texts read by Toralv Maurstad.
Lawo classics 2013, LWC 1055. Recorded in Sofienberg and Jar churches 2012/13
SPILL OG DANS
Johannes M. Rivertz (1902-88) complete piano music
Lawo classics LWC 1043, recorded in Sofienberg Church, Oslo 2012
Blaue Blume
Piano Works by Chopin, Schumann and Torstein Aagaard-Nilsen.
Lawo Classics LWC 1019, recorded in Sofienberg Church, Oslo 2010
Le Nouveau Grieg
Visionary Masterpieces by the mature Edvard Grieg
TROLD 21 / MUDI 2092. Recorded on Edvard Grieg’s grand piano in the villa 2007
Mountain Dance
Visionary Masterpieces by the young Edvard Grieg
TROLD 20 / MUDI 2110. Recorded in the Troldsalen 2003
Videos
Reviews
Richly Nuanced Grieg Interpretations
«Bergen pianist Rune Alver has just released his album “Le nouveau Grieg”. It features his playing of Grieg’s Norwegian Peasant Dances and Lyric Pieces on Grieg’s grand piano at Troldhaugen. A wonderful, richly nuanced Grieg album»
Nina Krohn, NRK Classical
No Smallfry at the Piano
«Pianist Rune Alver is no smallfry. In his concert at the University of Oslo’s Great Hall he succeeded in impressing the audience with both his piano technique and his ability to shape the music. Today he can be counted among the cream of young Norwegian pianists.»
Torkil Baden, VG
FEDRENES FJELL
«[…] Rune Alver´s playing is really good, pointed, varied and serious.»
Erling Sandmo, Morgenbladet
Good playing - superbe music
«David Monrad Johansen’s (1888-1974) music is an important contribution to Norwegian music literature. Rune Alver now has collected his piano music on the CD «Fedrenes Fjell». The recording is good and important. […]The music is clearly inspired by folk music – it is easy to appreciate, and it lifts our traditional music onto another musical level. […]»
Trond Erikson, Den klassiske CD-bloggen
«Rune Alver has launched his sixth solo CD – and again it must be said that his pianistic performance is of prime quality. […] »
Trond Erikson, Den klassiske CD-bloggen
«[…] I thought I posessed a more or less correct image of composer Monrad Johansen, but after listening to this CD, I must admit that I have underestimated him. […]»
Martin Anderson, Klassisk musikkmagasin
«The pianist Rune Alver offers a Master´s playing […]
Even though it is a studio recording, «Spill og Dans» to a large extent conveys the soul of a live concert.»
Per Ivar Henriksbø, Gulbrandsdølen
«It is especially the rhythmic drive in some of the Norwegian Peasant Dances that is the distinctive feature of this album. One good example is “Jon Væstafæs Springar”, in which Rune Alver treads the bass line in a refreshing and elegant three-quarter time, while letting the right hand trill and sing like a light-hearted dairymaid at the summer chalet»
Nina Krohn, NRK Classical
«Rune Alver gave the ultimate proof of his high artistic level in his magnificent interpretation of Beethoven’s Sonata in B-major, The Hammerklavier Sonata, one of the greatest works of its kind in Music Literature. Here he fully mastered the great span between for instance the energetically demanding Allegro of the first movement and the uniquely beautiful third movement. Here Rune Alver presented convincing evidence of his willingness and ability to form, which is characteristic trait of all major muscians»
A. Chr. Meyer, Morgenavisen Bergen
No Smallfry at the Piano
«Convincing Schumann interpretation by Rune Alver. Schumann’s Fantasie Op. 17 is dedicated to Liszt who was of the opinion that the piece was not suitable for public presentation. Rune Alver does not share this opinion. On this new CD, his interpretive imagination illuminates the wild, frenzied qualities that must have once brought on Liszt’s hesitation. We hear unabashed romantic yearning and passion, ruins, fragments and irony – all wrapped in a delicate musical articulation. In the first movement, Alver keeps up the tension through all the wave movements right into the concluding Beethoven quotation. He also successfully brings out the contrast between the wild Florestan and the mild Eusebius in the two subsequent movements where Schumann portrays his split personality.
There is more romance on the album – two melancholy pieces by Chopin, his Mazurka Op. 6 No. 1, and Ballade No. 3 in A flat major. The final track is Blue Traces by Torstein Aagaard-Nilsen – a lyrical contemporary composition that fits perfectly with the romantic context»
Peter Larsen, Bergen Tidende
«Rune Alver’s piano performance concluded with a piece entitled “Lyssna”, a modern-sounding number by Arne Nordheim, which understandably promted cheerul smiles among the listeners. Alver was an exceptionally talented pianist both as soloist and as accompanist»
Stig Marinsson, BLEKINGE LÄNS TIDNING