Edvard Grieg and His Songs

Sandra Jarrett

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000507461
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

Originally published in 2003, Edvard Grieg and his Songs examines the lifetime of Edvard Grieg. His songs were among his most popular and well-known works and both historians and critics have seen in them, Grieg at his most sophisticated and innovative. Important in and of themselves, the songs also illuminate critical aspects of his other works such as his musical impressionism, his use of folk music as a source of inspiration, and his novel approach towards harmony. Fifty of Grieg's most important songs form the focus of this book. Each song is discussed individually and within the wider context of the composer's output. The book provides a translation of the lyrics, and analysis of the poem and a description of the song's form, melody, tessitura, harmony, rhythm and accompaniment, together with suggestions for interpretation. In addition to this, the book gives a brief biography of Grieg, with a chapter that analyses his approach to song writing.

CHAPTER ONE

Edvard Grieg: A Brief Life

The early years

Edvard Grieg was born in Bergen, Norway on 15 June 1843, the fourth child of a cultivated, well-educated, and prosperous middle-class family. He had two older sisters, a brother, and a younger sister, and his childhood was pleasant and unremarkable. He seems to have been of sensitive, but cheerful, disposition, and was not averse to playing tricks in order to be sent home from school, which he did not enjoy.

The boy’s ambition was to become a preacher, as he loved giving lengthy sermons to his family and presiding over funerals for deceased pets. But, from his mother, a gifted pianist, poet, and playwright, he also learned to play the piano. He later recalled his fascination with the sounds he could make on that instrument – remembering, in particular, when he was about five and could barely reach the keyboard

… the wonderful mysterious satisfaction with which my arms stretched out to the piano to discover – not a melody: that was far off: no; it must be a harmony. First a third, then a chord of three notes, then a full chord of four; ending at last, with both hands, – O joy! a combination of five, the chord of the ninth. When I found that out my happiness knew no bounds.¹

It must be admitted at once that Edvard was no child prodigy as a pianist. He was impatient with the scales and technical exercises assigned to him by his mother, and he would much rather sit improvising dreamily at the piano. Although his mother tried to instill some discipline in his lessons, enough of the dreaminess spilled over into true creative impulse, and he began to write down his little compositions when he was about nine years old.

Upon reaching his early teens he realized his calling was to be a musician. One of his relatives on his mother’s side by marriage was Ole Bull, the violinist of international fame. Edvard played some of his compositions for Bull, who prompted Edvard’s parents to send the boy to the Leipzig Conservatory in Germany. With its legendary faculty of music it was considered to be the leading institution of its kind, drawing students from all over the world.

Leipzig Conservatory of Music, 1858–62

Edvard was a boy of fifteen when he arrived in Leipzig in October 1858, homesick and with scant knowledge of German. Immature, of diminutive stature and with little self-discipline, he began his lessons shakily, but during his three-and-a-half-year course of study he developed by leaps and bounds. He was seriously ill with tuberculosis at one point, losing the use of one of his lungs entirely, which permanently affected his health and eventually shortened his life. However, he developed into an ambitious student, applying himself assiduously to the fundamentals of his craft, and as a result his talent as pianist and composer blossomed. Among other pieces, he wrote several songs to German texts that foreshadowed the innovative harmonic thinking of his later work. Upon graduation during Easter in 1862 at the age of eighteen he received exceptional testimonials from his teachers.

He returned to Bergen for a year, and went through what many young graduates experience – uncertainty about the future. Although he loved Bergen, and enjoyed some success there with a public performance of his youthful compositions, his need for intellectual and cultural stimulation went unfulfilled in his native city. The place for young Scandinavian artists in those days was Copenhagen, the incomparable capital of Denmark, and the center of artistic and cultural endeavors in northern Europe.

The Copenhagen years, 1863–66

With a loan from his father, Edvard planned to make Copenhagen his home while continuing to develop his creative gifts as a composer. He lived there for most of the next three and a half years, from April 1863 to September 1866. Those years in Copenhagen were among the most exciting and growth-filled of Grieg’s artistic life; they were also crucial for his personal life, for there he met Nina Hagerup, the girl who was to become his wife and the inspiration for his songs.

Grieg hoped that acquaintance with the most established Scandinavian composers of the day would provide him with the mentoring and the contacts he would need to establish himself professionally. However, something quite unforeseen happened. He and a group of young Scandinavians became close friends, and they decided to rebel against the older, more conservative musical establishment. They formed their own contemporary music society, devoted to promoting and performing modern Scandinavian music. This was quite a stimulus for Grieg’s independent development, which was further intensified by his close friendship with the brilliant young Norwegian composer Rikard Nordraak. Together, the two vowed to make the development of a truly Norwegian musical idiom their life’s work.

An even more life-altering experience for Grieg during these years was falling in love with Nina Hagerup, his cousin. They became engaged in December 1864 – secretly, because both their families had great reservations. Nina’s actress mother, with a profound lack of prescience, complained of Edvard, ‘He is nothing, he has nothing, and he writes music that nobody cares to hear!’² Edvard’s parents were skeptical because of the lovers’ youth: Edvard was twenty-one and Nina nineteen; and because Nina’s father was considered to be the black sheep of the Hagerup family – unreliable and unstable. Their parents only consented to an engagement announcement in July 1865, when it had become clear to all concerned that the young couple intended to be married regardless of opposition.

The state of being in love was greatly stimulating for Edvard’s creative energies. In December 1864 he completed his most accomplished and beautiful songs to date, Hjertets Melodier (Melodies of the Heart), Opus 5, at the same time that he and Nina became engaged. He had previously written a group of songs, Opus 4, to German texts and had dedicated them to Nina. For not only had Grieg fallen in love with a wonderful young girl, but this girl was also an exceptional singer, a soprano, at the beginning of a promising career. From then on, almost all of his songs would be written with her and her voice in mind.

Christiania, 1866–74

Grieg now felt that he should return to Norway to put into practice his ideas for creating a thoroughly Norwegian musical culture. He decided that the capital Christiania (today Oslo) would be the place to start. In October 1866 he moved to Christiania, taking the position of conductor of the Philharmonic Society, and establishing himself as a teacher. He gave his debut concert with a program of Norwegian music, with Nina performing his Hjertets Melodier, on 15 October, to great public and critical acclaim. His first symphony concert was lauded as well. His life as a professional musician had begun auspiciously indeed.

On 11 June 1867, Edvard and Nina were married in St John’s Church in Copenhagen. Their families were still so set against this marriage, and there was so much ill will on all sides, that no member of either family was invited to the wedding. The ceremony itself was informal and the celebrations that followed took place within a circle of close friends only. A few days later the newlyweds moved into a tiny garret apartment in Christiania.

Their first year in the Norwegian capital was full of artistic activity. In addition to the concerts for the Philharmonic, there was the Music Academy which Edvard had founded with a friend. Also, Nina was pregnant, giving birth to daughter Alexandra on 10 April 1868. That summer the little family went to Denmark to visit Nina’s family, and to find some peace and quiet for Edvard, who wished to do some serious composing. And indeed he did. During the course of the summer he composed three songs, Opus 15, one of which was a lullaby with text taken from a play by Henrik Ibsen, Margaretes Vuggesang (Margaret’s Lullaby). The birth of his dear daughter was the direct inspiration for this song. Grieg’s most important achievement that summer was the composition of one of his life’s greatest works, one that was to make his name internationally famous, and which would earn him everlasting popularity as a composer – the Piano Concerto in A Minor, Opus 16.

Struggle and grief marked the year that followed. The Philharmonic Society dissolved for lack of support, and Grieg had to organize his symphony performances by subscription on his own. Finances were shaky. And then in May 1869 their beloved daughter, only thirteen months old, was fatally struck down by meningitis. Edvard and Nina grieved for many years and never again had any children.

Life was made bearable for the young couple by a trip to Italy and a lengthy stay in Rome from the fall of 1869 to the spring of 1870. Edvard had received a travel grant from the Norwegian government, thanks to a glowing letter of recommendation from Franz Liszt. The trip reinvested Edvard with a sense of life’s possibilities and got his creative juices flowing again. In Rome he met Henrik Ibsen again (they had previously met during Grieg’s first trip to Italy in 1866), and he further developed his friendship with Liszt, whose effusive compliments of Grieg’s works gave the younger composer a solid sense of his own worth.

Back in Christiania, Grieg also became closely acquainted with Norway’s great nationalist poet and political activist, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. Throughout the Christiania years there was much socializing between the Griegs and the Bjørnsons, and the young couple were introduced to a wide variety of artistic and political personalities. Most important, Bjørnson and Grieg planned a number of artistic collaborations, which spurred Grieg to compose some wonderful orchestral pieces and incidental music for Bjørnson’s stage works, as well as some of his very finest songs using Bjørnson’s poetry – Opuses 21 and 39.

Grieg’s skill as a composer, using Norwegian poetry and Norwegian themes, expanded greatly during this period. His name was well known and loved outside his own country, where his concerto, chamber works, songs, and piano pieces received wide acclaim. But his desire to promote a truly Norwegian musical culture met with stony indifference and even hostility from the reigning musical establishment in Christiania. Grieg became increasingly bitter about this, attributing the lack of support for Norwegian music in the nation’s capital to a mistaken view that anything imported was better than local fare. This negative attitude, together with Grieg’s impatience with having to earn his living largely as a teacher and conductor instead of as a composer, led him to decide that it was time to move on.

Plate 1.1 Edvard Grieg towards the end of the 1870s. The Royal Library of Copenhagen.

While in Christiania, he did succeed in accomplishing one of his significant goals – the planning and founding of the Musical Society. Together with his friend and colleague Johan Svendsen he led the new association and conducted many of its symphony concerts, creating a lasting institution that today is the renowned Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. It would have been easy for Grieg and Svendsen, another gifted composer, to have become rivals rather than friends and collaborators, but they had the warmest affection for one another and remained mutually supportive throughout their lives. In 1874 the Norwegian government awarded both young composers the very first Composer’s Grant. This grant freed Grieg from the necessity of teaching and conducting, and with it he left the capital for Bergen.

Bergen and Lofthus, 1874–85

In January 1874, Henrik Ibsen had written to Grieg, requesting that he compose music for Ibsen’s verse play Peer Gynt. Although Grieg felt confident that he could finish the job in a few months, in fact it took him two years. He and Nina left Christiania for Bergen that May, and spent the summer there, while Grieg began working on Peer Gynt in a quiet little pavilion lent to him by a friend. The task was more difficult than Grieg had at first imagined. Ibsen wanted a great deal of music, including setting some of the text, and he intended to replace the entire fourth act with a musical tableau. In the meantime, the Griegs spent a year in Copenhagen and Leipzig, from September 1874 to September 1875. Grieg’s parents became seriously ill during the summer, so the young couple returned to Bergen, where they witnessed the death of both of Edvard’s parents – his father in September and his mother in October.

The passing of his parents was hard on Edvard. Relations between them had been strained during the last few years, a result of Edvard’s doing what he wished instead of following his parents’ advice (a fairly normal process of becoming a mature individual, with strong desires and a necessarily egoistic bent). Despite this, he had been close to them both, especially to his mother, and he grieved long and deeply. That winter he wrote what is widely considered to be his greatest piano solo piece, the Ballade, Opus 24. Under the surface of its brilliance lies an expression of human suffering which Grieg had never before revealed. This was followed by a set of six songs to Ibsen’s poetry, Opus 25, almost all of them expressing the pain of loss.

After finishing the Ibsen songs early in 1876, Grieg was ready for a change. He felt attracted to the cheerful, sentimental poetry of his friend from Bergen, John Paulsen, and wrote his next set of songs, Opus 26, to five of Paulsen’s poems. The following fall, Grieg finally published the music for Peer Gynt. For its performances during the winter of 1876–77 he and Nina lived for a few months in Christiania again.

That experience simply reinforced Grieg’s intense dislike for the capital. But he did not want to return to Bergen, either. He was convinced that if only he could work in peaceful, yet inspiring surroundings, he could truly settle down to full-time, prolific composing. He and Nina chose a spot on the lovely Hardangerfjord in West Norway called Lofthus, and they settled in an inn there in 1877. It was quiet and spectacularly beautiful, with the kind of nature experience that always seemed to be a source of inspiration for Grieg. Furthermore he could be completely alone while working, for he had a little hut built especially for that purpose.

Unfortunately these perfect working conditions, instead of spurring him on to greater production, seem to have precipitated an emotional, spiritual, and even marital crisis that nearly drove him to despair. In his struggle to resolve these conflicts, he produced some of his most stirring, innovative, and technically sophisticated music, and therefore the year at Lofthus by the Hardangerfjord was one of great importance to Norwegian musical history. During this year Grieg experienced long stretches when he was unable to compose, alternating with short periods of intense creative activity. Therefore he managed to complete only a few works during the year of 1877–78 – the G Minor String Quartet, Opus 27; the last (and generally thought to be the best) of the Album Leaves for piano, Opus 28; Improvisations on Two Norwegian Folk Songs, Opus 29; the Album for Male Voices, Opus 30, based on folk tunes; and Den Bergtekne (The Bewitched Lad), Opus 32, a dramatic work for baritone, two horns, and string orchestra.

Grieg had been awarded a travel grant by the Norwegian government in 1878. He would use this stipend to travel for most of the next two years, returning to Lofthus for only a few months in 1879. The Griegs traveled to Copenhagen where they became enormously popular performing together, and Edvard traveled on his own to Cologne and Leipzig to give concerts. During these two years he would not write a single piece of music.

Early in 1880, Grieg arranged and promoted four cha...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Plates
• List of Music Examples
• Preface
• 1 Edvard Grieg: A Brief Life
• 2 Writer of Songs
• 3 The Voice of Nina Grieg
• 4 Opus 4 and Opus 5
• 5 The First Bjørnson Songs: Prinsessen, Opus 21, and Opus 39 No. 2
• 6 The First Ibsen Songs: Opus 23, from Peer Gynt
• 7 Six Songs by Henrik Ibsen: Opus 25
• 8 The Vinje Songs: Opus 33
• 9 Six Songs, Opus 48: Poems by Heine, Uhland, Vogelweide, Goethe, and Bodenstedt
• 10 Opus 44 and Opus 49: The Danish Poet Holger Drachmann
• 11 The Krag Songs: Opus 60
• 12 Songs for Children: Opus 61
• 13 The Haugtussa Song Cycle: Opus 67
• 14 Poems by Otto Benzon: Opus 69 and Opus 70
• 15 Conclusion
• Appendix A: Norwegian Language and Pronunciation
• Appendix B: List of Songs Discussed in this Work with Opus Numbers, Poets, Range and Voice Type, and Available Editions
• Appendix C: Complete list of Edvard Grieg’s Published Songs for Solo Voice
• Bibliography
• Index