A meeting in London in 1906 between a floppy-haired twenty-four-year-old Australian and a Norwegian Lloyd George lookalike in his mid-sixties does not apparently seem a good starting point for this recording. But when the young pianist and composer Percy Grainger was introduced to Norway’s most celebrated composer Edvard Grieg at the house of Sir Edgar and Lady Speyer, a remarkable friendship and artistic affinity was struck up. At this meeting Grainger played Grieg’s Norwegian Folksongs Op 66 and Peasant Dances Op 72, and Grieg was so impressed with his performance (‘this young Australian is the first to play them as they ought to be played’) that he asked Grainger to prepare his Piano Concerto for a projected performance in the 1907 Leeds Festival.