Edvard Grieg on Music Theory Print

Ballade in the Form of Variations on a Norwegian Folk Song

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Cello Sonata (Grieg)

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Structure#

The sonata has three movements: The work takes approximately 26 minutes to perform.

Arrangements#

Violin and Piano arrangement by the composer, 1884
Gary Karr and Joseph Horovitz arranged the sonata as a double bass concerto on his album Virtuoso Double Bass.
Joseph Horovitz and Benjamin Wallfisch orchestrated the sonata as a cello concerto.

Haugtussa (Grieg)

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Song cycle project#

Edvard Grieg read Arne Garborg’s Haugtussa in May 1895, and was so inspired that he composed twelve songs in a month, four of which he rejected. Grieg wanted Haugtussa to reflect Garborg’s poems, but by using only a few selected poems was able to give a true and complete new image to Haugtussa, thus creating a new whole. They were released in Nynorsk and Danish, translated by John Paulsen and Grieg and published by Wilhelm Hansen in Copenhagen, translated to German by Eugen von Enzberg, and in English, published by Edition Peters in Leipzig.

Holberg Suite

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Background#

The Holberg Suite was originally composed for the piano in September 1884, but a year later was adapted by Grieg himself for string orchestra. The suite consists of an introduction and a set of dances. It is an early essay in neoclassicism, an attempt to echo as much as was known in Grieg’s time of the music of Holberg’s era. The work was premiered on 15 March 1885 in Bergen. The French premiere was on 22 April 1894 at an all-Grieg concert at the Concerts Colonne, conducted by Grieg himself.

In the Hall of the Mountain King

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Setting#

The piece is played as the title character Peer Gynt, in a dream-like fantasy, enters “Dovregubbens (the troll Mountain King’s) hall”. The scene’s introduction continues: “There is a great crowd of troll courtiers, gnomes and goblins. Dovregubben sits on his throne, with crown and sceptre, surrounded by his children and relatives. Peer Gynt stands before him. There is a tremendous uproar in the hall.” The lines sung are the first lines in the scene. Grieg himself wrote, “For the Hall of the Mountain King, I have written something that so reeks of cowpats, ultra-Norwegianism, and ’to-thyself-be-enough-ness’ that I cannot bear to hear it, though I hope that the irony will make itself felt.” The theme of “to thyself be… enough” – avoiding the commitment implicit in the phrase “To thine own self be true” and just doing enough – is central to Peer Gynts satire, and the phrase is discussed by Peer and the mountain king in the scene which follows the piece.

Lyric Pieces

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Complete listing#

Even though it was published in several volumes, some publishers, such as Edition Peters, have numbered the pieces as a whole, thereby numbering the 66 pieces in order, instead of numbering each volume individually.

Book I, Op. 12#

Composed 1866–1867(?); published 1867. # Arietta # Vals (Waltz) # Vektersang (Watchman’s song, after Macbeth) # Alfedans (Elves’ Dance) # Folkevise (Folk Song) # Norsk (Norwegian Melody) # Albumblad (Albumleaf) # Fedrelandssang (National Song)

Lyric Suite (Grieg)

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History#

Grieg wrote the six Lyric Pieces of Book V for piano in 1891. The original order was: # Shepherd Boy (Gjætergut) # Norwegian March (Gangar) # March of the Dwarfs (Troldtog) # Notturno # Scherzo # Bell-Ringing (Klokkeklang) In 1894, Anton Seidl, the conductor of the New York Philharmonic, orchestrated four of the pieces for his orchestra to play. He gave the work the title of Norwegian Suite. The four pieces he chose were: # Norwegian March # March of the Dwarfs # Notturno # Bell-Ringing Seidl died in 1898. In 1905, with the assistance of Daniela Thode (1860–1940; the daughter of Cosima Wagner by her first husband Hans von Bülow, and the grand-daughter of Franz Liszt), Grieg obtained the score of Seidl’s arrangement but was dissatisfied with it in some respects. He wrote to Seidl’s widow, saying that, while her late husband’s work had considerable merit, it did not fully accord with his own conception of the pieces, and he had therefore revised Seidl’s orchestrations. Seidl had worked alongside Richard Wagner for a number of years, making the first copy of the score of Der Ring des Nibelungen, and conducting the Ring Cycle many times in Germany and America. He was undoubtedly influenced by Wagner’s heavy Germanic instrumentation, which did not fit well with Grieg’s lighter, more subtle and folkloristic approach.

Morning Mood

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Music#

Written in E major, the melody uses the pentatonic scale and alternates between flute and oboe. Unusually, the climax occurs early in the piece at the first forte which signifies the sun breaking through. The time signature is and the tempo instruction is Allegretto pastorale. It is orchestrated for flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, trumpets, timpani, and string section. A performance takes about four minutes.

Setting#

The piece depicts the rising of the sun during act 4, scene 4, of Ibsen’s play, which finds Peer Gynt stranded in the Moroccan desert after his companions took his yacht and abandoned him there while he slept. The scene begins with the following description: “Dawn. Acacias and palm trees. Peer Gynt is sitting in his tree using a wrenched-off branch to defend himself against a group of monkeys.” As the Peer Gynt suites take their pieces out of the original context of the play, “Morning Mood” is not widely known in its original setting, and images of Grieg’s Scandinavian origins more frequently spring to the minds of its listeners than those of the desert it was written to depict.

Peer Gynt (Grieg)

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Background#

Edvard Grieg (1843–1907) was one of the definitive leaders of Scandinavian music. Although he composed many short piano pieces and chamber works, the work Grieg did for this play by Ibsen stood out. Originally composing 90 minutes of orchestral music for the play, he later went back and extracted certain sections for the suites. Peer Gynt’s travels around the world and distant lands are represented by the instruments Grieg chooses to use. When Ibsen asked Grieg to write music for the play in 1874, he reluctantly agreed. However, it was much more difficult for Grieg than he imagined, as he wrote to a friend: Nina Grieg, his wife, wrote of Edvard and his music: Even though the premiere was a “triumphant success”, it prompted Grieg to complain bitterly that the Swedish management of the theatre had given him specifications as to the duration of each number and its order: For many years, the suites were the only parts of the music that were available, as the original score was not published until 1908, one year after Grieg’s death, by Johan Halvorsen.

Piano Concerto (Grieg)

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Structure#

The concerto is in three movements:

I. Allegro molto moderato#

The first movement is in sonata form and is noted for the timpani roll in its first bar that leads to a dramatic piano flourish, which leads to the main theme. : Then the key changes to C major, for the secondary theme. Later, the secondary theme appears again in the recapitulation, but this time in the key of A major. The movement finishes with a virtuosic cadenza and a flourish similar to that at the start of the movement.

Piano Sonata (Grieg)

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Recordings#

In 1903, Grieg recorded two movements Later pianists to record the Sonata in E minor include Glenn Gould, Alicia de Larrocha and Eva Knardahl. Leslie Howard has recorded it on a disc of Four Scandinavian Piano Sonatas.

Song of Norway

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Stage production#

Song of Norway was originally developed and presented in Los Angeles by Edwin Lester’s Los Angeles Civic Light Opera in 1944, with essentially the same cast as seen later on Broadway. It was also performed in San Francisco. The show opened at the Imperial Theatre in New York on August 21, 1944, and ran for 860 performances. Charles K. Freeman directed while George Balanchine was responsible for the choreography. The sets, costumes, and lighting design was by Lemuel Ayers. while Lawrence Brooks starred as Edvard Grieg. The original Broadway cast featured Irra Petina as a fictional opera singer Louisa Giovanni and Kent Edwards as Elnar. The show featured dances, both ballet and Norwegian folk dances, performed by the Ballet Russe de Monte-Carlo. Maria Tallchief, one of the featured dancers, married Balanchine during the run of the show. Ballet dancer James Starbuck portrayed the roles of Freddy and Tito in the Broadway production. It ran in London for 526 performances at the Palace Theatre, the first Broadway show to cross the Atlantic after the end of the Second World War.

Song of Norway (film)

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Plot#

Song of Norway begins with the young composer Edvard Grieg struggling to get his music noticed by other musicians or music producers in either Norway or Denmark. Grieg wants to write great lyrical music that represents his country. He gradually promotes his music with the help of composer and friend Rikard Nordraak, and cousin/wife/singer Nina Willemsun Grieg. During these early years (1860s), Norway was not especially looking for a composer of nationalist music based on Norwegian lyric songs. Other composers including Smetana, Dvorak and Liszt were beginning to develop a rich tradition of romantic music using the folk tunes of their homelands. In the film, Grieg complains about the lack of local interest in similar music for Norway. An old flame (the wealthy Therese Berg) helps subsidize a series of concerts for Grieg. He then applies for a travel grant, and his wife Nina befriends a local pianist (Mr. Krogstad) who then writes a letter to Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt on Grieg’s behalf. Grieg receives the grant, and leaves for Rome, while Nina remains in Norway. In Rome Grieg meets Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen and Franz Liszt. He holds numerous concerts and debuts his works. At this time Grieg also composes his famous piano concerto in A minor. Ibsen eventually asks Grieg to write the music for his play Peer Gynt. The film ends when Grieg returns home to Nina in Norway to continue his career. Of interest, the film correctly notes that Grieg’s friend Rikard Nordraak, who dies while Grieg is away in Rome, composed the Norwegian national anthem.

String Quartet No. 1 (Grieg)

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Background#

Grieg wrote the quartet in 1877–78, while living at a farm in Hardanger. He wrote to a friend “I have recently finished a string quartet which I still haven’t heard. It is in G minor and is not intended to bring trivialities to market. It strives towards breadth, soaring flight and above all resonance for the instruments for which it is written.” The first performance of the quartet took place in Cologne in October 1878, by a quartet led by the work’s dedicatee, violinist Robert Heckmann. Publication of the quartet was delayed when the composer’s preferred publisher, C.F. Peters, initially rejected the quartet because they believed the double stopping in some movements would require the work to be rewritten as a piano quartet or quintet. Grieg had to find another publisher, E.W. Fritzsch, and only after the success of that release did C.F. Peters publish their own edition.

Swinging Suites by Edward E. and Edward G.

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Reception#

In the 1960s, the Royal Swedish Academy of Music made a statement, referring to a Swedish law paragraph called “Klassikerskyddet” (“Protection of Classics”) in the copyright legislation, that Duke Ellington’s jazz versions on the album were “offending to the nordic music culture”. Ellington withdrew the album and the case was never tried in court. In 1992, The New York Times reviewed a live performance of Ellington’s Peer Gynt adaptation: “The pieces, with their dense and gorgeous harmonies, lend themselves perfectly to live performance” and “the melody kept peeking around creamy harmonies, hurtling up-tempo sections abruptly merged with ballads”.

Two Elegiac Melodies

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Background#

The two movements are instrumental arrangements Grieg made of two of his 12 Melodies, Op. 33, published in 1880: these were settings for voice and piano of words by the Norwegian poet and journalist Aasmund Olavsson Vinje. Two Elegiac Melodies was dedicated to Heinrich von Herzogenberg. Grieg also made an arrangement for solo piano.

Description#

It is scored for 1st violins (sometimes in two parts), 2nd violins (in two parts), violas (in two parts), cellos and double basses. The many parts allow for a thick texture when required.

Violin Sonatas (Grieg)

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Violin Sonata No. 1 in F major, Op. 8#

Grieg composed this sonata in the summer of 1865 while on holiday with Benjamin Feddersen in Rungsted, Denmark, near Copenhagen. The piece was composed shortly after his only piano sonata was completed that same summer. Concerning the piece, Norwegian composer Gerhard Schjelderup commented: it is “the work of a youth who has seen only the sunny side of life.” Despite this, many sections of the work are quite dark and turbulent. The sonata has three movements: The violin’s opening theme in the first movement: :

Wedding Day at Troldhaugen

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Description#

Originally called "" (The well-wishers are coming), it was written in 1896 as a memorial of the 25th wedding anniversary of Grieg and his wife Nina. The anniversary celebration had been held in the Fossli Hotel near the Vøringfossen waterfall in June 1896. Grieg and his wife celebrated their wedding anniversary with Børre and Nancy Giertsen. Nancy was the sister of Marie Beyer, then married to Frants Beyer, Grieg’s best friend. She belonged to their closest circle of friends at Troldhaugen. During the occasion a guest book was ready to take contributions from all the guests. Grieg gave the work its final title in 1897 when he compiled Book VIII, Op. 65, of his Lyric Pieces. The work’s festive march-like first section, describes congratulations and best wishes that are given by the guests to the couple; the second section is reflective and subdued. Most performances of this piece take about 5 to 6 minutes.