EDVARD GRIEG

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 44, 26 April 1940, Page 11

EDVARD GRIEG

Musician Who Refused To Surrender To Germany

HE giant of Norwegian music is, of course, Edvard Grieg, who was partly Scottish, It is in fact remarkable that both Grieg and Ibsen, the most prominent men in Norwegian music and letters, traced their descent from Scottish ancestors. Ibsen’s remote ancestors came from Fifeshire; Grieg’s great-grandfather was an Aberdeen merchant who was concerned in the "bonnie Prince Charlie" business in 1745. As a result he had to flee from Scotland and managed to escape to Bergen in Norway, as other rebels did, He also changed the spelling of his name from GREIG to GRIEG, to suit the local pronunciation, and became a Norwegian merchant. On the maternal side, Grieg descended from Kjeld Stub, who died in 1663. Stub was an adventurous, gifted rascal, a gambler, drinker, rover, swashbuckler, gallant and preacher whose life in full would make most novels dull. Perhaps it is Stub, therefore, rather than the Scottish merchant Grieg, whom we have to thank for Grieg himself. Debt to His Mother Grieg’s mother was a fine musician, a good pianist, and a composer of folk-songs which are still popular in Norway. She was a Bergen girl, but was sent to Hamburg and London to study the piano. Later she gave recitals in Christiania (Oslo) and at home, Altogether she acquired an outlook so much wider than was usual in those days that the Grieg’s home became the centre of intellectual and artistic life in Bergen. Young Edvard thus heard good music well played every day from his babyhood, By the time he was twelve he composed a set of " Variations on a German theme." Enter — Ole Bull Then, three years later, one summer's day, says Christen Jul, a very great man stepped into his life, or rather galloped on horseback into the Grieg’s courtyard, This was Ole Bull, Norway’s first great musical son, the peasant boy who fiddled his folktunes all over the world, Having heard young Edvard play Opus 1, Bull insisted that the youth must go to Leipzig. So Grieg went. It is a curious fact that he wrote of his German teachers as "rather a dusty crowd." By peaceful penetratidn and really clever

organisation the Germans had at that time obtained something like a stranglehold on music almost everywhere. They had the composers, they had the conservatoires, they printed the music, they manufactured the pianos and other instruments, In addition they sent forth an army of teachers, merchants, and salesmen who settled everywhere. German music and musicians therefore became an all-powerful combination, and it was against this brick wall that young Grieg ran his head. He felt himself outside most of the teaching at Leipzig and escaped into his dreams. But for the inspiration of a group of clever young Englishmen, led by Arthur Sullivan, he might have give up altogether. Their

industrious example was the turning point in his career. He went to work in earnest-and won. But it was only when he returned home that his imagination was released, that he "felt free to sing as he liked." He settled in the Norwegian capital, " teaching, conducting, visiting quiet fjords in summer, fishing on grey days, playing cards in the long winter nights, hearing the country people sing and dance, composing music to the writings of Ibsen and Bjornsen." Grieg wrote his music with a lead pencil, erased again and again until he was satisfied. Then he traced it over in ink and gent the original to his publisher. Triumph Over Pedants The pedants of Leipzig who frowned on his "dangerous dialect tendencies" lived to hear Hans Von Bulow, Germany’s greatest pianist, describe Grieg as "the Chopin of the North." They also learned that Liszt was so pleased with two of Grieg’s sonatas that he wrote a letter praising the young composer. Liszt rhapsodied later over Grieg’s piano concerto. Last Days On a happy day for both of them Grieg had married his cousin, Nina Hagerup, who sang his songs in public and helped to wake his music better known. Because he was delicate in body he lived a quiet life in his own country home, "Troldhangen." There, on the lovely Hardanger Fjord, near Bergen, during the last twenty years of his life, he wrote most of his music. On the gate half-a-mile down the road was a board announcing that "Edvard Grieg regrets he is unable to see any visitors before 4 a.m.!’ Grieg needed solitude and seclusion when he worked. If he felt that anyone---even his own wife- was listening, he would close up the piano and stop, At sixty-four, he died from heart failure. His wife saw his ashes laid in the spot he had chosen, a grotto in the cliff below " Troldhangen," overlooking the fjord. A plain granite slab was carved roughly, "Edvard Grieg." The landing place below was filled with broken stones. He was left alone as he wanted, in the heart of the country he loved. Even the guns of the invader cannot disturb him.