Premiered in 1869, Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor is one of the few compositions he conceived on a large scale. He tried his hand at operas and symphonies, but – freethinker that he was – he did not particularly care for the straitjacket of being tied to forms. Though the concerto includes intentional references to Norwegian folk music, a close connection to German Romanticism is also apparent, as are undeniable parallels to Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto.