Edvard Grieg (1843
-1907) Songs
Edvard Grieg showed an early interest in
music. At the age of fifteen he was sent to the Conservatory in Leipzig on the suggestion of the violinist
and composer Ole Bull (1810 -1880). The city, home of the famous Gewandhaus
Orchestra and with a Conservatory founded by Mendelssohn, was strongly
characterized by the German romantic spirit and made an immediate impression on
the young Norwegian composer. Here he acquired a solid technical foundation and
although he later expressed his reservations about the education he had
received, his sketch-books and exercises from his time in Leipzig show that in his lessons with
Richter, Hauptmann and Reinecke he still had freedom to experiment and that his
talent was recognised. There was no real basis for Grieg's later criticisms of
the teaching he had received.
After completing his
studies in Leipzig, Grieg settled in Copenhagen and there soon came
under the influence of Rikard Nordraak, whose enthusiasm and firm belief that
the future of Norwegian music lay in its national folk-music traditions was a
significant influence on Grieg's development as a composer. The influence of Nordraak
can best be perceived in the Humoresque, Opus 6, which may be seen as a
break-through for Grieg as a composer. The same year his famous collection of
songs, Hjertets Melodier, Opus 5 (Melodies of the Heart) settings of words by
Hans Christian Andersen, was published. In the autumn of 1866 Grieg established
himself in Christiania (Oslo), which remained until 1874 the centre of his
activities. It was in this period that he built the foundation of his
increasing fame.
Griegwas early
categorized as a composer of smaller forms. His indisputable lyrical powers
were never questioned, but, with the exception of a few works such as the Piano
Concerto, Opus 16, the String Quartet in G minor, Opus 27,
the Piano Sonata in E minor, Opus 7, the three Violin Sonatas, Opus 8,
Opus 13 and Opus 45 and the Cello Sonata, Opus 36, he was
generally unable to come to terms with larger forms. Grieg felt this as a
shortcoming and blamed, 'without justification, the education he had received
in Leipzig. Nevertheless he was
able to show that he had also mastered these more extended forms when, all too
seldom, he found musical material that could be adapted and treated within the
framework of traditional sonata form. The material that attracted him, however,
was of a very different kind.
Grieg's encounter
with Norwegian folk-music and his assimilation of substantial features from it set
free his creative powers and suggested to many that his music was, in effect,
synonymous with folk-music. Some saw him simply as an arranger of folk-music, a
conclusion that hurt him deeply, since Grieg in his own works very rarely used
real folk-tunes. It is quite another matter that many of his compositions have
attained the status of folk-music.
Harmonic substance is
very central to all Grieg's music and it is the harmony that is often the
starting-point of a composition. Grieg underlined this strongly in a letter to
Henry T. Finck:
The empire of
harmonies has always been my dream-world and the relationship between the
harmonic way I feel and the Norlvegian folk-tune has even for me always been a
mystery. I have realized that the secret depth one can find in our folk-tunes
is caused completely by their richness in unimagined harmonic possibilities. In
my adaptations of folk tunes in Opus 66 and elsewhere I have tried
to express my interpretation of the hidden harmonies in our folk-songs.
Grieg's own
instrument was the piano and it was principally his ten books of lyric pieces,
with other compositions for the piano, that brought him contemporary
international fame. His songs, with a few exceptions, faced greater
difficulties in winning acceptance, in spite of relatively frequent concert
performance. It was only in the Nordic countries that they were regarded as
equal in quality and hence equal in quality to the instrumental works. Grieg
himself believed that the lack of interest in his songs outside Scandinavia was due to the
relationship between the public or the singer and the text itself, or, more
precisely, to problems arising from the translation of the Norwegian and Danish
texts he used. Apart from the first two collections, Four Songs, Opus 2,
and Six Poems, Opus 4, nearly all his songs are settings of texts in
these languages. Only once, later in life, did he turn again to German poetry,
namely in Six Songs, Opus 48.
Grieg wrote, in all,
more than 180 songs. Apart from the first ones, which may be regarded as
apprentice attempts at the German Lied, nearly all belong to the Nordic
tradition of song, a style that Grieg was instrumental in developing. One of
his models was Halfdan Kjerulf, who in his settings of the work of Norwegian
poets established a pattern that Grieg continued to develop. Grieg claimed that
Kjerulf understood how to strike the national strings, not by borrowing from
folk-song but by his association with folk-type melodies, simple and unaffected
in form. Nordic song is characterized by strophic or varied strophic settings,
with a melodic treatment that has its ideal in folk-song, which in its use of
declamation and in its accompaniment has the primary purpose of expressing the
intentions of the poet, as perceived by the composer. This is why Grieg always
took a close interest in the manner of interpretation of his songs and explains
his frequently expressed dissatisfaction with many singers. In a letter to his
friend Frants Beyer in 1895 he wrote:
The devil take all
singers. Now, when Nina does not sing any longer, I understand for the first
time how lucky I have been, but now comes the time when, like Diogenes, I have
to search for a human being who understands how to continue where she left off.
In Germany I do not .find it.
It must absolutely be here in the Nordic countries. Both in London and in Paris the
public would rather listen to the original Norwegian text sung with
understanding by a Scandinavian than a bad translation sung by one of their own
people. Unfortunately, however, in Norway all these young
virgins have no idea at all about their own literature.
In his diary of 1906
Grieg writes even more openly:
What are singers?
Nothing but vanity, stupidity, ignorance and dilettantism. I hate them, every
one of them. 'Also your wife?', one will ask, but I answer: 'I am sorry, but
she is lucky enough not to be a singer'.
In Grieg's opinion
the singer should principally be at the service of the poet and the poem and
for him his wife Nina was the ideal interpreter of his songs. Her ability to
convey small variations in rhythm and mood from strophe to strophe with music
that is more or less the same from verse to verse was, with her understanding
of the texts, the key to public appreciation and understanding.
The present recording
includes many of Grieg's best and most well known songs. The two earliest, To
brune Ojne (Two Brown Eyes) and leg elsker Dig (I Love but Thee)
come from Hjertets Melodier, Opus 5, (Melodies of the Heart), all with
words by Hans Christian Andersen. The songs were published in 1865 and they are
certainly full of his love for Nina, to whom he had recently become engaged. Fire
digte, Opus 21, (Four Poems), settings of poems from Bjornson's The Fishermaiden,
were written at a period of strong artistic development. In the 1870s Grieg
made a number of settings of texts by Bjornstjeme Bjornson, among others the
melodrama Bergljot, Opus 42, the incidental music for the play Sigurd
lorsalfar, Opus 22, and the operatic fragment Olav Trygvason, Opus 50,
in addition to settings of various poems. The collaboration with Bj0mson was intense, inspiring
and stonny. Using Bjornson's historical drama Olav Trygvason as a
starting-point, they planned to create a Norwegian national opera. The project
came to nothing and when Grieg preferred to write music for Henrik Ibsen's Peer
Gynt there was a rift between the two men. The four poems from The Fishermaiden
were published in 1873. These, with Fra Monte Pincio (From Monte Pincio)
and Prinsessen (The Princess), were all written in the years from 1870
to 1872. Fra Monte Pincio was published in 1884 in the collection Romancer
(eldre og nyere), Opus 39, (Romances (Old and New)), while Prinsessen was
published in 1871 as Grieg's contribution to a collection of works by Nordic composers,
Fra nordiske komponister.
Margretes Vuggesang (Margaret's Lullaby)
is from the collection Romancer, Opus 15, written and published in 1868.
This song, the first in the collection, was the first of Grieg's settings of
Ibsen. In the years that followed he set a number of other texts by the great
Norwegian playwright, from which he drew inspiration for some of his finest
songs. The two songs from Peer Gynt, solveigs Sang (Solveig's Song) and solveigs
Vuggesang (Solveig's Cradle Song) need no further introduction. It was the
first of these, in particular, that brought Grieg's name before an
international public. The two songs from seks digte, Opus 25, (Six Poems
by Henrik Ibsen), En svane (A Swan) and En Fuglevise (A
Bird-song) were written in 1876, the year of the first performance of Peer Gynt.
Grieg arranged these, with Fra Monte Pincio and Vtiren, for
orchestra in 1894-95.
I Liden hfljt deroppe
(Upon a Grassy Hillside) is also from Opus 39, a collection that
includes songs from the period from 1869 to 1884. This song is Grieg's only
setting of a poem by Jonas Lie and was written in 1884, the year of
publication. Unlike other poets represented in the present collection, John
Paulsen is today exclusively remembered because of the settings of his verses
by Grieg and by other composers. Paulsen was a close friend of Grieg and the
present collection includes three settings from Grieg's Fern Digte, Opus 26,
(Five Poems by John Paulsen). These are uneven in quality, but among the best
are Med en Primula veris (The First Primrose) and leg reiste en deilig
sommerkvaeld (I Walked One Balmy Summer Eve). The songs were published in
1876, their year of composition Almost twenty years later two further collections of
settings of Paulsen were published, Opus 58 and Opus 59 From the
second of these, Elegiskedigte (Elegiac Poems), comes Til En II (To Her
II) These songs may not be among Grieg's best, but the next collection, Digte,
Opus 60, (Poems by Vilhelm Krag), occupies a high position among his songs Mens
jeg venter (On the Water) is a good example of Grieg's inspired treatment
of Krag's neo- romantic poetry The settings of Paulsen and of Krag were
published in 1894.
Thirteen years
earlier Grieg had published a collection that belongs among the very best of
his songs This is Tolv melodier, Opus 33, (Twelve melodies to Poems by A.
O. Vinje) Varen (Spring) and Ved Rondane (At Rondane) were
written in 1880 and published in the following year. In the first of these
familiarity with the text is essential for its interpretation. The title in
German and in English is often given as Letzter Friihling or Last
Spring, a title used by Grieg in a letter of 1900 to his biographer Henry Finck
in an attempt to clarify the content of the poem.
Grieg's friendship
with the Danish poet Holger Drachmann resulted in a series of songs, often
variable in quality Foraarsregn (Spring Showers) was written in the
autumn of 1887 and published two years later in the collection Sechs Gedichte,
Opus 49, (Six Poems by H Drachmann) It is one of the most successful songs,
notable for its treatment of the accompaniment The collection Sechs Lieder,
Opus 48, (Six Songs), settings of German poets, is more even in quality The
first two songs, Grufl (Greeting) and Dereillst, Gedanke mein (One
Day, O Heart of Mine)he composed in 1884, while the remaining settings were
made five years later Here Grieg turns away from the Nordic song and towards
the German Lied, without departing from a more or less strophic treatment of
the poems He dedicated this collection to the singer Ellen Nordgren (Ellen Gulbranson),
with whom he gave several recitals in the later years of his life She was later
to make her career in the music of Wagner.
@ 1996 Oyvind Norheim