Sounding North: Music in Scandinavia, 1865-1931

Daniel Grimley

Why Scandinavia?

Isolation vs Cosmopolitanism Conservatism vs modernism Landscape and nature Folklorism, myth, and authenticity Musical influence and tradition Music and other media

Edvard Grieg

Piano Concerto, Peer Gynt

Nationalism ‘Father of Norwegian

Music’ Miniaturism Popularist (Lyric

Pieces) Pictorial/decorative

Grieg Chronology 1843 Born, Landås, Bergen 1858 Enrols, Leipzig Conservatoire 1863 Moves to Denmark, meets H C Andersen, Niels

Gade, J. P. E. Hartmann, Rikard Nordraak 1868 Composes Piano Concerto, meets Liszt (1870) 1875/6 Composes Peer Gynt, sees Der Ring des

Nibelungen in Bayreuth 1877/8 First visits to Hardanger, composes String

Quartet in G minor, Den Bergtekne 1890/1 First major concert in Paris. Fifth book of Lyric

Pieces, hears Gjendine Slaalien in Jotunheim 1895 Song cycle Haugtussa, op. 67 1901/2 Slåtter (Hardanger Fiddle Tunes), op. 72 1907 Dies, 4 September

Grieg and the Norwegian Landscape

Associative Formative Landscape and Grieg

Reception Landscape and

Representation (Adolph Tideman,

Johan Christian Dahl) Ecologies of Sound

Landscape and the Lyric Pieces

Op. 68/4, ‘Aften på høyfjellet’ (Evening in the Mountains)

Op. 54/3, ‘Notturno’

Den Bergtekne (The Mountain Thrall), op. 32

Composed Hardanger, 1877/8 Text: Magnus Brostrup Landstad, Norske

Folkeviser (1853) Dialect language Enticement, Eroticism, and the midsummer

night Harmonic evasion: ‘ballad topic’ Climax: structural deflection Postlude

Haugtussa, op. 67 Composed 1895 Text: Arne Garborg (1851-

1924), verse-novella Nynorsk Poetic themes: nature

mysticism, folk legend, unconscious

Grieg setting: 8 songs (originally 12)

Cyclic Structure Schubert, Die Schöne

Müllerin; Schumann, Dichterliebe

‘Det Syng’ (It Sings)

Strophic Setting Modal change: f minor/F major Prelude: Naturklang (nature sound) Register and mode Harmonic structure: verse and refrain Postlude

‘Veslemøy’

Character portrait Strophic Design (‘Stev’) Minor mode Harmonic Structure No postlude

‘Ved Gjætlebekken’ (By Goat Brook)

Emotional/structural climax of cycle Complex strophic/rounded binary hybrid Opening accompaniment: water or bell

sounds? Harmonic structure Register and narrative closure

Further Listening (Grieg)

Piano Concerto, op. 16 String Quartet in G minor, op. 27 Violin Sonatas (1, 2, 3), opp. 8, 13, 45 Lyric pieces, esp. opp. 54, 71 ‘Stemninger’ (Moods), op. 73 Ibsen songs, op. 25 Vinje Songs, op. 33