Bergen - Norway - page 279

Grieg: The Chopin of the North
“I am sure my music has the taste of codfish in it,” or so wrote Nor-
way's greatest composer, Edvard Grieg, born in Bergen in 1843, the son
of a salt-fish merchant. Like Ole Bull (p. 283), Grieg became the tow-
ering figure of Norwegian Romanticism.
Shipped off to the Music Conservatory in Leipzig from 1858 to 1862,
Grieg fell under the heavy influence of German Romanticism but
returned to Oslo (then called Christiania) with a determination to cre-
ate national music for his homeland, then struggling for a self-identity
different from Denmark.
Back home he fell heavily under the influence of his country's folk
music and “fjord melodies.” In the year 1868 he finished Piano Con-
certo in A Minor, his first great masterpiece. That work is said to evoke
Norway as no other composition had ever done or has done since.
When Grieg met the great Norwegian writer Bjørnstjern Bjørnson,
the author realized that he'd found the writer to compose music for
his poems. Their most ambitious project was a national opera based on
the history of the Norwegian king, Olav Trygvason.
Meeting Henrik Ibsen for the first time in 1866, not in Norway but
in Rome, Grieg agreed to compose the music for Ibsen's dramatic poem
Peer Gynt. After this grand success, Grieg also set music to six poems
by Ibsen. In 1888 and 1893 Grieg published Peer Gynt Suite I and II,
which remain popular orchestral pieces to this day. Bjørnson was furi-
ous that Grieg had teamed with Ibsen, and the work on their national
opera never came to fruition.
During the Nazi occupation, Saeverud wrote a trio of “war-sym-
phonies” and one called “Ballad of Revolt” in honor of the Norwegian
resistance to the Nazis. Today that latter composition stands as a sym-
bol for the struggle against dictatorship and occupation. After the war
he composed music for Henrik Ibsen's dramatic poem, Peer Gynt.
Twelve concert pieces extracted from this work are among the most
frequently played orchestral works today.
In 1874 Grieg returned to Bergen where he created such world-
fabled compositions as Ballad in G minor, the Norwegian Dances for
Piano, the Mountain Thrall, and The Holberg Suite. He'd married Nina
Hagerup, the Norwegian soprano, and together they moved into
Troldhaugen, their coastal home that today is one of the major sight-
seeing attractions of Bergen.
It was at Troldhaugen that Grieg created such works as Piano Sonata
for Violin and Piano in C minor, the Haugtussa Songs, and the Norwe-
gian Peasant Dances. His last work was Four Psalms, based on a series
of Norwegian religious melodies.
In spite of poor health and the loss of one lung, Grieg maintained a
grueling schedule of appearances on the Continent. But he always
came back to Troldhaugen for the summer. Eventually on September
4, 1907, his body couldn't take it anymore. As he prepared to leave for
yet another concert, this time in Leeds, England, he collapsed at the
Hotel Norge in Bergen and was hospitalized, where he died of what
doctors called “chronic exhaustion.”