Many years ago I went to Troldhaugen, a beautiful place out on a lake, looking towards a Norwegian fjord, idyllic. Troldhaugen is just outside the city of Bergen and is where Edvard and Nina Grieg lived. And it's where he and his wife are buried.
It wasn't high summer when I was there, and I was part of a private tour (elitism, I know, sorry) so the place wasn't full. You can peek in the window and see Grieg's workroom, his hat and his desk, and it's genuine too.
There's a small concert hall at Troldhaugen, steeply banked as I recall from a subsequent visit, but I was part of an audience that day that was able to witness a concert given in the Griegs' actual drawing room. We heard a repertoire of his works played on piano, including "Solveig's Song", of course, though the others escape me. I mean, I was only twenty-something: all except "Wedding Day at Troldhaugen", a simple piece, true, but memories aren't solely linked to complexity.
I didn't know it at all at the time, and there's little chance to hear it all that often these days I feel, but it made such an impression in me. Probably because I'm a Romantic.
I've since found out when and why he wrote it, and, pour la petite histoire, I've just played my vinyl copy again. The memories are always the same whenever I hear itn and for me it's as evocative a work as anything else I can think of.
But then, I know, I've been to Troldhaugen.
Go to Bergen if you can, and make the short trip out to his house at Troldhaugen. He's buried there in a rock-face tomb, together with his wife. The music means so much more once you've been.

Pervy Grainger, the Australian composer was a great friend of Grieg, and they enjoyed a mutual admiration society. There is a story, Colin, which you may corroborate or otherwise, that, Grainger being a somewhat athletic individual had a trick which would delight the Griegs.
He would take a tennis ball or a cricket ball on sunny summer days, and, with the front & back door of Grieg's house wedged open, would throw the ball over the house from one side, sprint through the house and catch it on the other side before it landed. Does that make sense to you, having seen Grieg's actual home?

PS "Wedding Day at Troldhaugen" is a lovely piece. Do you happen to know how Troldhaugen ought to be pronounced?
PPS

Picture of Ritzmar

Posted 12-31-07 10:38 AM Hide Post
Rather than correct my typo, I am leaving it as a genuine misprint which I have just noticed and find greatly amusing! You may or may not know that Grainger's, erm... romantic proclivities were, to say the least, modern & liberal...

It was also my 3333rd post, so it was special from many points of view...

'Pervy Grainger'
Ritz, only YOU could make a typo like that

quote:

Originally posted by Ritzmar:
Rather than correct my typo, I am leaving it as a genuine misprint which I have just noticed and find greatly amusing!

I just find the image of you chuckling away over your own typo hilarious!
Ritz: "Hahaha...Pervy Grainger..that's priceless. I think deserve another scotch. Now where did I put my new glass?"

Happy New Year, Ritz!
And to you too, Jenny. You really have a unique music teacher there!

Cheers, Jen! I thought it was special...outdid myself there, did I not...& I absolutely guarantee that it was genuine!

Yes, a very happy New Year to Jen (your Christmas present works a treat, already I have tried it out several times) to dg (((x))) & to Colin, who is a star.
Also a very happy New Year to all our readers, whomsoever they may be

That really was my 3333rd post...

QUOTE BY DG 'And to you too, Jenny. You really have a unique music teacher there!'


Unique, DG, you are not kidding! There could never be another one like Ritz! I love him to bits Happy New Year to you

You are very kind, thanks for the good wishes & comments...

There is a story, Colin, which you may corroborate or otherwise, that, Grainger being a somewhat athletic individual had a trick which would delight the Griegs.
QUOTE:

"He would take a tennis ball or a cricket ball on sunny summer days, and, with the front & back door of Grieg's house wedged open, would throw the ball over the house from one side, sprint through the house and catch it on the other side before it landed. Does that make sense to you, having seen Grieg's actual home?

PS "Wedding Day at Troldhaugen" is a lovely piece. Do you happen to know how Troldhaugen ought to be pronounced?"

I'm back very late on this Ritz, but here I am at last.

The story about the tennis ball was repeated to us by the guide at the time, and it's certainly possible given the lay out of the detached, wooden house Grieg lived in. I've got a photograph somewhere, but from memory it's built of dark-green vertical wooden boards (wood, for this is Scandinavia)with a bit of cream trim.
As for pronouncing the name "Troldhaugen" in Norwegian, it's "TROLL" (with a short "o"), a soft "d" sound, "HOW" (pronounced as in English), and then "GUHN", which is pronounced rather like the word "gun" with the vowel omitted.

You do understand, of course that I'll be humming "Wedding Day at Troldhaugen" to myself all day long now?

Now explain why he was Pervy Grainger (Typo, my foot, I suspect Freudian influence and the writer knows something !)

Best I can find is that he was a sado-masochist who also designed his own unique style of clothing and whose mother, when pregnant with him, used to stare at a statue of a Greek god, in the hope that he would have divine gifts!

Though you could add that if he carried a cricket ball in his luggage as an Australian in Norway,then he was certainly weird

Colin, many thanks for your last offering which is greatly appreciated...

Fred, your observations are substantially correct, as I understand it. Amongst other things he practised self-flagellation, or paid/persuaded women to flagellate him, and his relationship with his mother was unusual, to say the least. However, it never fails to surprise me that details like this are of such an unbalanced interest to many people, when compared to his considerable talents.

Apart from his excellent compositions & arrangements, pretty unique in his own style, by the way, he was a very fine pianist. Also, he almost certainly used the three pedals on the grand piano more fluently and effectively than anyone else who ever lived. He had a way of putting one foot across two of the pedals, and using his heel to operate one of them, and his toe to activate the other, whilst using his other foot to bring the other pedal into play. This, whilst playing the most complex and demanding keyboard-writing flawlessly, at the same time. Many very well-respected musicians testified to the novel & magical keyboard effects which he was able to create by manipulating the pedals as if he were Jake the Peg on amphetamines.

Before you church organists begin to tell me loftily that pedal operation whilst handling several keyboards is all in a day's work, just try this on the piano for yourselves! I take nothing away from the ability to play a real organ very well (the best & most well-rounded musicians whom I have met in my life tend to have been cathedral organists & professional conductors) but this trick is still a very difficult exercise to perform fluently. Grainger was an exceptionally talented and highly skilled musician.

PS I had already written my post above and had sent it off, and was just re-reading it when I saw the typo. My first thought was to edit it instantly, and then I thought it was too good to be destroyed. Had it been applied to someone like Bach or Chopin it would have had no resonance, but it fits Grainger so aptly that I felt that it had to stay.

Somewhere on this site, or Discussionpool, someone has a signature which goes something like, "Everybody seem normal until you get to know them." As this most definitely applies to me, I am extremely cautious about sniggering over anyone else's peculiarities..... ... ...

PPS In the paragraph above, I see on reading it after posting, that it contains rather a lot of 'some's', but I just cannot be bothered to refine it, so there...