EDVARD HAGERUP GRIEG

EDVARD HAGERUP GRIEG.

Born June 15, 1843, at Bergen, Norway.

Edvard Hagerup Grieg was born June 15, 1843, at
Bergen, Norway. His mother was an enthusiastic
musician arid pianist, and under her instruction the boy
made rapid progress, until at the age of 15 his musical
gifts were so pronounced that by the advice of Ole Bull,
he was sent to the conservatory of Leipsic, where he
became a pupil of Moscheles and the other principal
teachers. The three years' study in this famous musical
center were by no means satisfactory to Grieg. There
was a constant struggle between his fondness for Nor-
wegian melody and the efforts of his teachers to make
him write in a purely German manner. Accordingly he
graduated from the Leipsic school in 1862 without any
particular distinction, and without his remarkable talent
having been recognized by any of the masters under
whose personal charge his instruction had been carried
on.

Later he went to study with the venerable Niels Gade
at Copenhagen, and while there he formed a friendship
with a young Norwegian musician, Rikard Nordaak,
who died shortly afterwards. Nordaak was a pro-
nounced Norwegian nationalist in his sentiment, and
believed that the art of every country could best be de-
veloped from the themes peculiar to the country itself.
Speaking of this friendship, Grieg says : "The scales fell
from my eyes. From him I first learned to know the
feelings of the people, their make and nature. We con-
spired against the effeminate Scandinavianism of Gade
mixed with Mendelssohn, and we enthusiastically wan-

30




EDVARD HAGERUP GRIEG.



-31-



32 THE GREAT IN MUSIC: FIRST YEAR.

dered in the new path along which the northern school
is now traveling."

Following out the new path, the next few years show a
remarkable development of the talent of this young mas-
ter. Two of the songs on the present program were writ-
ten in 1869 and 1870. In 1865 and 1870 he visited Italy
and held intercourse with Liszt in Rome. He also went
back again to Leipsic for a short residence and for con-
tact with other musicians. In Norway he began to at-
tract a good deal of attention. His choral society, which
he conducted at Christiania from 1867 to 1880, led to
his composing several cantatas upon Scandinavian sub-
jects. He also wrote a large number of songs upon
poems by Norwegian writers, such as Bjornson, Ibsen,
etc. His first recognition on a wider scale took place
at Leipsic, where he played his piano concerto at a
Gwandhaus Concert in 1879.

Concerning the peculiar style of Grieg's music, the
following, by Dr. William Mason in the Century Maga-
zine, March, 1894, is very much to the point:

"While original and spontaneous, his music is imbued
with the old Norse melodies and folk-songs, which are
distinguished from those of other Scandinavian nations
by a certain robustness, ruggedness and abruptness in
harmonic changes, that are for the most part in the
minor key, and abound in peculiar rhythms so irregular
as to seem almost without periodicity, or, in other words,
almost without rhythm. Some of the older melodies are
crude, harsh and barbarous. Many of them present such
a succession of rough and abrupt rhythms without ap-
preciable melody, as almost to prevent faithful and ac-
curate notation. Grieg is always true to the Norwegian
coloring, and the freedom of gesture and motion char-



EDVARD GRIEG. 33

acteristic of peasant life is in his music. The strong con-
trast produced by marked emphasis and rhythm com-
bined with syncopation, the constant recurring effect of
light and shade through proper attention to dynamics,
are very marked. He is, however, always within the
bounds of good taste, and is never excessive or extrava-
gant."

The Norwegian coloring in Grieg's music is due to
peculiarly Norwegian turns of melody, and the use of
occasional quaint minor chords in the harmony. Sci-
entifically speaking, the latter peculiarities are due to
the use of obsolete scales in the "church modes," par-
ticularly .the Mixolydian, from sol to sol, and the Hyper-
dorian, from la to la with minor seventh. The Nor-
wegian influence is further to be seen in the titles
affixed to these pieces, which are nearly all of Norwegian
origin.

In consequence of these peculiarities of Grieg, his
music forms a welcome addition to the world's store,
in which the leading cadences of German and Italian art
have been worn well nigh threadbare, so that it is only
through the infusion of new blood from Slavic and north-
ern sources that striking results have latterly been ob-
tained.

Grieg lives near Bergen, Norway, excepting when
compelled to seek a milder climate on account of pul-
monary weakness. Dr. William Mason of New York
paid him a visit in 1890, and gives the following account
of the man and his charming residence :

"On the afternoon of July I, 1890, having received an
invitation from Grieg, I made him a short visit at Villa
Troldhangen, his summer home, situated on the borders
of the Nordsvand, a drive of about an hour and a half



34 THE GREAT IN MUSIC: FIRST YEAR.

from Bergen. His house is of hr.rdwood throughout,
very substantial, and at the same time cozy and com-
fortable. The front door opens from the sitting- or
music-room directly upon the lawn, without any inter-
mediate hallway. The grounds are beautiful and in
many places thick with forest trees and shrubs, while
here and there a clearing brings to view the waters of
the fjord. The wild flowers, with their bright, rich
colors, were especially attractive. Mrs. Grieg, a very
charming woman of bright and cheerful disposition, en-
tertains in a genial way. She is an excellent musician
and singer, and has accompanied her husband on most
of his concert tours. Her earnest and heartful singing,
enhanced and supplemented by her husband's exquisite
accompaniments on the pianoforte, has an effect of spon-
taneity as though improvised, and the result is in every
way a genuine musical delight.

Grieg himself is genial, cultured and unaffected. He
has a keen intelligence, and a cheerful disposition, which
he retains notwithstanding the constant care of his
health, occasioned by a serious pulmonary affection con-
tracted while studying at Leipsic. He is short in stature
and has a large and imposing head. His expression is
serious, earnest and artless, and he is by nature re-
pugnant to anything like posing. He leads a very re-
tired life, rarely going out, and then only on. extraordi-
nary occasions. He is patriotic and public spirited, takes
a constant interest in whatever affects the welfare of his
country, and he has felt much concerned about the
political changes now going on in Norway. His intense
nationality, as well as his marked individuality, find con-
stant expression in his music, the originality and style of
which are unmistakable."



EDVARD GRIEG. 35

NOTES UPON THE GRIEG SELECTIONS.

Like all the more prominent modern composers, Grieg
has distinguished himself in his songs, of which the num-
ber now reaches to well nigh a hundred. Those upon
the present program are taken from the first volume of
Grieg's songs, in the edition Peters, No._466A.

One of the most characteristic and beautiful of these
songs is "Margaret's Cradle Song," the poem of which
is by Ibsen. It is a pity that the poem has only one
verse, the sentiment is so naive and the musical ex-
pression so pleasing. If we were to search for charac-
teristic expression peculiar to Grieg, we might find it
in the third measure of this song over the words "To
heaven seems to rise" where the progression from the
seventh of the scale down to the fifth, and then the
parallel fifths between the soprano and bass in the last
half measure, make a harmonic fault which in a student
would meet with immediate reprobation.

THE PEER GYNT SUITE.

Voices of the Morning. (Morgenstimmung.)
The Death of Aasa. (Ases Tod.)
Anitra's Dance. (Anitra's Tanz.)
In the Halls of the Mountain King.

The Peer Gynt Suite was named after a poem by-
Ibsen, and the names of the people in the suite are those
of the poem, but there is scarcely any other connection
between them. The first movement is of a pastoral char-
acter, according to its title representing the spirit of
the morning in the mountains, the freshness, the bright-
ness, the simplicity, the purity of a mountain morning.
Otherwise this movement might be classed at a Prelude,
which it is.



36 THE GREAT IN MUSIC: FIRST YEAR.

Aase was the mother of Peer Gynt, who on his own
part was a sort of Norwegian ne'er-do-well, who left
his poor mother alone in her mountain cabin while he
went the world over in pursuit of adventures adven-
tures also found. While he is away poor Aase dies alone
in her cabin upon the mountain side, far from the habi-
tations of men. The music here is a funeral march. All
that it has appertaining to Peer Gynt or his mother,
Aase, consists in the Norwegian tone of the music.

Anitra was a fascinating minx of the desert, whom
Peer Gynt encountered one time at the very height of
his success in masquerading as the Prophet. Her fas-
cinations so entranced him that she got from him suc-
cessively his ring, his horse, his apparel and his money,
and capered off upon his steed, while the pseudo prophet
was left to pursue his inglorious way on foot. None
of this appears in the music but the witching grace
of Anitra a grace more noticeable in the orchestral
version than in the plainer piano copy. It is simply a
light and graceful mazurka, which would sound just as
well under any other name and suggestion.

The Mountain King of Norwegian mythology was a
sort of gnome or brownie fairy, who lived in subter-
danean splendor and merrymaking beneath the icy cov-
erings of the remote mountain tops of Norway. In one
of his adventures Peer Gynt encounters an attractive
lady who takes him home with her. She proves to be
the daughter of the Mountain King, and great fun the
gnomes have with the ignoble intruder. This is the
spirit and the meaning of the finale of this suite. Other-
wise considered the piece is a sort of grotesque galop,
worked up from very low and quasi subterranean be-
ginnings, low in the bass, to the full powers of the in-

O



EDVARD GRIEG. 37

strument. At the end the phantasm vanishes into the
distance.

Aesthetically considered this piece is to be praised
for a certain novelty of tone ; but the admiration is re-
stricted to the degree proper to playful phantasy as dis-
tinguished from the high and pure soaring of the free
imagination dealing with the noblest themes.

"GOOD MORNING."
(Grieg Album, Peters 466 A.)

Very charming and delightful in every way is the
second song "Morning is Breaking, Rises the Sun" on
a poem by Bjornson. In this piece, while it would not
be easy to say of any phrase that it might not have
been written by a German, the succession of phrases
certainly would never have had a German origin. The
melody is free, bright, playful, the rhythm bright and
pleasing, and the whole effect peculiarly charming.

NORWEGIAN BRIDAL PROCESSION PASSING BY.

(From the Folk Life. 4th Grade.)

One of the most popular of Grieg's pieces is that from
a suite entitled "From the Folk Life." It is called "Nor-
wegian Bridal Procession Passing By." In effect it is
a march with strong and peasant-like rhythm, and with
a curious combination of pedal harmonies in which a
new chord appears upon the same bass note that we
have already had with its own chord. In this manner
the entire first period is voiced on the fifth E-B, which
is reiterated very much in the same manner as the drone
of the bagpipe. All through the next twenty measures
the bass remains on B. After this there is a period of
indecision and a variety of chords are presented, and



38



THE GREAT IN MUSIC: FIRST YEAR.



finally after some delay the original theme is resumed,
but this time with a new voice added in the bass which
has the effect of obscuring the peculiar insistence of the
bass note E. The march becomes very brilliant, and
then gradually dies away and disappears in the distance.