Grieg is the most celebrated person from the city ofBergen, with numerous statues that depict his image and many cultural entities named after him: the city's largest concert building (Grieg Hall), its most advanced music school (Grieg Academy) and its professional choir (Edvard Grieg Kor). The Edvard Grieg Museum at Grieg's former home,Troldhaugen, is dedicated to his legacy.[2][3][4][5]
Edvard Hagerup Grieg was born inBergen, Norway. His parents were Alexander Grieg (1806–1875), a merchant and the British Vice-Consul in Bergen, and Gesine Judithe Hagerup (1814–1875), a music teacher and daughter of solicitor and politicianEdvard Hagerup.[6][7] The family name, originally spelledGreig, is associated with theScottishClann Ghriogair (Clan Gregor).[8] After theBattle of Culloden in Scotland in 1746, Grieg's great-grandfather, Alexander Greig (1739–1803),[9] travelled widely before settling in Norway about 1770 and establishing business interests in Bergen. Grieg's paternal great-great-grandparents, John (1702–1774) and Anne (1704–1784),[10] are buried in the abandoned churchyard of the ruined Church of St Ethernan inRathen, Aberdeenshire, Scotland.[11]
Edvard Grieg was raised in a musical family. His mother was his first piano teacher and taught him to play when he was age six. He studied in several schools, includingTanks Upper Secondary School.[12]
In the summer of 1858, Grieg met the eminent Norwegian violinistOle Bull,[13] who was a family friend; Bull's brother was married to Grieg's aunt.[14] Bull recognized the 15-year-old boy's talent and persuaded his parents to send him to theLeipzig Conservatory,[13] the piano department of which was directed byIgnaz Moscheles.[15]
Grieg enrolled in theconservatory, concentrating on piano, and enjoyed the many concerts and recitals given inLeipzig. He disliked the discipline of the conservatory course of study. An exception was theorgan, which was mandatory for piano students. About his study in the conservatory, he wrote to his biographer,Aimar Grønvold, in 1881: "I must admit, unlikeSvendsen, that I left Leipzig Conservatory just as stupid as I entered it. Naturally, I did learn something there, but my individuality was still a closed book to me."[16]
In the spring of 1860, he survived two life-threateninglung diseases,pleurisy andtuberculosis. Throughout his life, Grieg's health was impaired by a destroyed left lung and considerable deformity of his thoracic spine. He suffered from numerous respiratory infections, and ultimately developed combined lung and heart failure. Grieg was admitted many times to spas andsanatoria both in Norway and abroad. Several of his doctors became his friends.[17]
In 1861, Grieg made his debut as a concert pianist inKarlshamn, Sweden. In 1862, he finished his studies in Leipzig and had his first concert in his hometown,[18] where his program includedBeethoven'sPathétique sonata.
Grieg andNina Hagerup (Grieg's wife and first cousin) in 1899
In the summer of 1868, Grieg wrote hisPiano Concerto in A minor while on holiday in Denmark.Edmund Neupert gave the concerto its premiere performance on 3 April 1869 at the Casino Theatre in Copenhagen. Grieg himself was unable to be there due to conducting commitments inChristiania (now Oslo).[20]
In 1868,Franz Liszt, who had not yet met Grieg, wrote a testimonial for him to the Norwegian Ministry of Education, which resulted in Grieg's obtaining a travel grant. The two men met in Rome in 1870. During Grieg's first visit, they examined Grieg'sViolin Sonata No. 1, which pleased Liszt greatly. On his second visit in April, Grieg brought with him the manuscript of hisPiano Concerto, which Liszt proceeded to sightread (including the orchestral arrangement). Liszt's rendition greatly impressed his audience, although Grieg said gently to him that he played the first movement too quickly. Liszt also gave Grieg some advice onorchestration (for example, to give the melody of the second theme in the first movement to a solo trumpet, which Grieg himself chose not to accept).[21]
In the 1870s, he became friends with poetBjørnstjerne Bjørnson, who shared his interests in Norwegian self-government. Grieg set several of his poems to music, includingLandkjenning andSigurd Jorsalfar.[22] Eventually, they decided on an opera based on King Olav Trygvason, but a dispute as to whether the music or lyrics should be created first led to Grieg's being diverted to working on incidental music forHenrik Ibsen's playPeer Gynt, which naturally offended Bjørnson. Eventually, their friendship resumed.[23]
Theincidental music composed forPeer Gynt at the request of the author contributed to its success and separately became some of the composer's most familiar music arranged as orchestral suites.
Grieg had close ties with theBergen Philharmonic Orchestra (Harmonien), and later became music director of the orchestra from 1880 to 1882. In 1888, Grieg metTchaikovsky in Leipzig. Grieg was impressed by Tchaikovsky,[24] who thought very highly of Grieg's music, praising its beauty, originality and warmth.[25]
The Norwegian government provided Grieg with a pension as he reached retirement age. In the spring of 1903, Grieg made nine 78-rpmgramophone recordings of his piano music in Paris. All of these discs have been reissued on both LPs and CDs, despite limited fidelity. Grieg recordedplayer piano music rolls for the Hupfeld Phonola piano-player system andWelte-Mignon reproducing system, all of which survive and can be heard today. He also worked with theAeolian Company for its 'Autograph Metrostyle' piano roll series wherein he indicated the tempo mapping for many of his pieces.
In 1899, Grieg cancelled his concerts in France in protest of theDreyfus affair, anantisemitic scandal that was roiling French politics at the time. Regarding this scandal, Grieg had written that he hoped that the French might "Soon return to the spirit of 1789, when the French republic declared that it would defend basic human rights." As a result of his statements concerning the affair, he became the target of much Frenchhate mail that day.[28][29]
In 1906, he met the composer and pianistPercy Grainger in London. Grainger was a great admirer of Grieg's music and a strong empathy was quickly established. In a 1907 interview, Grieg stated: "I have written Norwegian Peasant Dances that no one in my country can play, and here comes this Australian who plays them as they ought to be played! He is a genius that we Scandinavians cannot do other than love."[30]
Edvard Grieg died at the Municipal Hospital in Bergen, Norway, on 4 September 1907 at age 64 fromheart failure. He had suffered a long period of illness. His last words were "Well, if it must be so."[31]
The funeral drew between 30,000 and 40,000 people to the streets of his home town to honor him. Obeying his wish, his ownFuneral March in Memory of Rikard Nordraak was played with orchestration by his friendJohan Halvorsen, who had married Grieg's niece. In addition, theFuneral March movement fromChopin'sPiano Sonata No. 2 was played. Grieg wascremated in the first Norwegiancrematorium opened in Bergen just that year, and his ashes were entombed in a mountain crypt near his house, Troldhaugen. After the death of his wife, her ashes were placed alongside his.[6]
Edvard Grieg and his wife wereUnitarians and Nina attended the Unitarian church in Copenhagen after his death.[32][33]
A century after his death, Grieg's legacy extends beyond the field of music. There is alarge sculpture of Grieg inSeattle, while one of the largest hotels in Bergen (his hometown) is named Quality Hotel Edvard Grieg and a large crater on the planetMercury is named after Grieg.
Grieg composed theincidental music forHenrik Ibsen's playPeer Gynt, which includes the excerpts "In the Hall of the Mountain King" and "Morning Mood." In an 1874 letter to his friendFrants Beyer, Grieg expressed his unhappiness with "In the Hall of the Mountain King," one of the movements in thePeer Gynt incidental music, writing "I have also written something for the scene in the hall of the mountain King – something that I literally can't bear listening to because it absolutely reeks of cow-pies, exaggerated Norwegian nationalism, and trollish self-satisfaction! But I have a hunch that the irony will be discernible."[34]
Grieg'sHolberg Suite was originally written for the piano, and later arranged by the composer forstring orchestra. Grieg wrote songs in which he set lyrics by poetsHeinrich Heine,Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Henrik Ibsen,Hans Christian Andersen,Rudyard Kipling and others. Russian composerNikolai Myaskovsky used a theme by Grieg for the variations with which he closed his Third String Quartet. Norwegian pianistEva Knardahl recorded the composer's complete piano music on 13 LPs forBIS Records from 1977 to 1980. The recordings were reissued in 2006 on 12 compact discs, also onBIS Records. Grieg himself recorded many of these piano works before his death in 1907. PianistBertha Tapper edited Grieg's piano works for publication in America by Oliver Ditson.[35]
Sixty-sixLyric Pieces for piano in ten books, Opp. 12, 38, 43, 47, 54, 57, 62, 65, 68 and 71, including:Arietta,To the Spring,Little Bird,Butterfly,Notturno,Wedding Day at Troldhaugen,At Your Feet,Longing For Home,March of the Dwarfs,Poème érotique andGone.
^Jerome Roche and Henry Roche."Moscheles, Ignaz", Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online, Oxford University Press, accessed 30 June 2014(subscription required)
^Rune J. Andersen."Edvard Grieg". Store norske leksikon. Retrieved1 September 2017.
^Inger Elisabeth Haavet."Nina Grieg". Norsk biografisk leksikon. Retrieved1 September 2017.
^Harald Herresthal."Edvard Grieg (1843–1907)". Norwegian State Academy of Music in Oslo. Archived fromthe original on 14 December 2005. Retrieved1 September 2017.
^John Bird,Percy Grainger, Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 133–134.
^Ylikarjula, Simo (2005).Minä elän ja muita viimeisiä sanoja (in Finnish). Helsinki: WSOY. p. 185.ISBN951-0-29407-1.
^Peter Hughes (4 November 2004)."Edvard and Nina Grieg".Dictionary of Unitarian and Universalist Biography. Unitarian Universalist Association. Archived fromthe original on 21 November 2019. Retrieved10 December 2013.
Foster, Beryl (2007)Songs of Edvard Grieg (Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press)ISBN978-1-84383-343-7
Grimley, Daniel (2007)Grieg: Music, Landscape and Norwegian Cultural Identity (Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press)ISBN978-1-84383-210-2
Jarrett, Sandra (2003)Edvard Grieg and his songs (Aldershot: Ashgate)ISBN978-0-7546-3003-6.
Kijas, Anna E. (2013). ""A suitale soloist for my piano concerto": Teresa Carreño as a promoter of Edvard Grieg's music".Notes: Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association.70 (1). Music Library Association:37–58.doi:10.1353/not.2013.0121.S2CID187606895.
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