Grieg: Piano Concerto; Ballade in G minor; Piano Sonata, etc

This is a puzzling set. In 1903 in Paris Edvard Grieg made a set of wax-cylinder recordings of his own piano music – some of the Lyric Pieces, two movements of his E minor sonata – which remain important historical documents, but which suffer from the limitations of the early recording process. The performances by Sigurd Slåtterbrekk stem from a forensic examination of those recordings, during which every nuance of Grieg's playing was studied. Slåtterbrekk then recorded not only the same works as Grieg, but the remaining movements of the sonata and the G minor Ballade, using the composer's Steinway, attempting to come as close as possible to Grieg's performances, which are also included in the set. The Piano Concerto was recorded on a modern instrument but following the principles established from the early recordings, and using the cadenza that Percy Grainger composed for it in 1908. It seems a bizarre exercise; Slåttebrekk's playing is accomplished enough, his account of the concerto fine, but I'm not convinced that the musicological baggage that comes with them makes them anything more.