Hjemkomst (Homecoming), Op. 58 No. 1, by Grieg
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Get the practice plan for Hjemkomst (Homecoming), Op. 58 No. 1
Here it is. Check your inbox for day 1.
- Hear it through at Slow (25 bpm). Open it in the reader, choose Slow, and follow the page with your eyes without playing. As it plays, count 3 to the bar.
- Learn the right hand of bars 1 to 8 on its own, in E minor. Say the note names out loud the first time through, then play it three times without stopping.
- Find the chords under it: F♯m7♭5, Bsus4, Esus4 and A7. Play each one as a block in your left hand and say its name, so you know what the harmony is before the left hand has to move.
- Learn the left hand of the same bars on its own. Keep it quiet and even: it is the floor the tune stands on.
- Put hands together at Slow, 25 bpm. Bars 1 to 8 only. Stop after every wrong note and play that bar again before moving on.
- Move up to Steady (38 bpm) once Slow feels easy three times in a row. Then learn the next 8 bars the same way: right hand, left hand, together.
- Play the whole piece (about 4 minutes) from the start, at whatever speed keeps it going. A steady run with a few slips beats a fast one that stops.
About this piece
The first of Grieg's songs to poems by John Paulsen, Op. 58, published in 1894: a traveller stands on deck and sees the steep coast of home rise over the sea, its bare skerries and grey islands. The music shifts between 3/4, 4/4 and 2/4 bars and wanders far in harmony before landing on a bright E major chord, with the sung melody in the right hand over the accompaniment.
How to play it
Count carefully through the changing time signatures and mark each one before you start. Let the left hand's low octave Es ring under the rich opening chords.
Reading it, and printing it
The score opens in Artform's reader, which shows the music as engraved notation and plays it back so you can hear the line before you try it. You can slow the tempo down, loop a passage that is not working yet, and print the page when you would rather have paper on the stand.
The file itself is MusicXML, which MuseScore, Sibelius, Finale and Dorico all open, so the notes are yours to keep whatever you read them in.
Edition: Mutopia Project #1896, licensed CC BY-SA. Converted to MusicXML by Artform and checked note for note against the original.
More free Grieg sheet music
Who Grieg was
Norwegian composer who became, more than anyone else, the voice of Norwegian music on the world stage, at a time when Norway itself was pushing for a national identity apart from Denmark and Sweden. His Piano Concerto in A minor, written when he was just twenty-four, remains one of the most beloved concertos in the repertoire; the incidental music he wrote for Ibsen's play Peer Gynt, including "Morning Mood" and "In the Hall of the Mountain King," is some of the most recognizable music ever composed. Away from the big commissions, his ten books of Lyric Pieces for solo piano, small, folk-inflected miniatures written across his whole career, work almost like a musical diary.
Learn the music behind it
Reading a piece and understanding it are different skills. If you want the harmony under this one, the chord trainer teaches chords the way songs use them, and the scale pages cover the fingering for every key, including E minor.