, 1907-09-05
GR|EG AND
HIS WORK
TRIBUTE TO DEAD COMPOSER BY
ONE OF HIS PUPILS AND EEL
LOW COUNTRY WOMEN
IN NORWAY.
Circle of Those Who Are Making of
the Fatherland One of the Most
Noted Nations Gradually Narrow
ing, Death Of This Composer Re-
moving One Of Her Brightest stel-
Ter Lishts-Death Is sorely Felt

Ter ll9ntS-Ocdtn 10 ooTcly feic
BY Agnes Mathilde Wergeland.
Bergen, Norway, Sept. 4.-Edward
Hagerup Grieg, the composer, died
here this NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. Press
dispatch.)
Again Norway has lost one from
among her circle of great sons and
daughters. Edward Grieg is dead. The
circle is growing smaller and the
names which have been so intimately
associated with her rise from an IN
known country to a leading position in
the world of literature and art disap-
pear one after another from the list
of the living. Grieg (born in 1S43)
lived to be over 60 years old, the great
er part of his manhood being spent on
his property near Bergen, where he
composed a large portion of his piano
pieces. 1t is said that his health was
not of the best, but his joy in his
work was not therefore any less, and
he has issued songs and piano pieces
up to the very last years, besides CIV
ing concerts, both at home and abroad.
and with his pen contributing to the
musical and biographical literature of
our day.
Came Of Musical Family.
Grieg has somewhere told the story
of his early youth and his studies. He
came of a musical family, his mother
being especially gifted, and from her
he received his fist instruction. He
soon began to compose and dreamed
of going to Germany to study. But it
was considered a great risk to send so
young a boy away from home alone,
and it was reserved for Ole Bull to
persuade the anxious parents that the
son was really deserving of SO great a
sacrifice.
- Came in Revelation.
In Leipsic he was brought up in the
traditions of S%chumann. Mendelssohn
and Chopin, and, like Kjerulf, he might
never have found the true medium for
his musical gifts if-by an accident
the treasure hidden in the old Nor
wegian folksongs had not been re-
vealed to him and he came to see the
path for him to follow. He has indeed
adopted the form, but the speech is,
after all, his own; and even the form
has, under his dexterous and sensitive
handling, assumed undreamed of mu-
steal possibilities. For Grieg Is a great
artifcer, a master of harmony, a thor
ough Judge of musical means a paint
err who yields a very suggestive brush.
On the Continent he was for a long
time known as the Chopin of the
North. But his world is one of more
freedom, less retrospection, than is
that of the great Pole. He is more
imbued with the spirit of venture and
conquest and glorying in the promised
land within his grasp, than could ever
be the wonderful Polish romanticist
whose soul brooded over past splendor
and ~vanquished power.
Norway Loyal to Him.
Few nations have with more instan-
taneous appreciated greeted a com
poser than the Norwegian people
greeted Grieg's early works. We felt
as with one accord that in his pieces
spoke at once a national, a historic
and a thoroughly modern spirit which
we were proud to call our own. And
Grieg has remained our interpreter un-
til this day. His compositions have
given us a hearing and opened the way
for our most seductive melodies to win
friends for us all over the world.
| Where Grieg is, there is Norway, and
bitter will be the regret with which
the news of his death will everywhere
be received.
The First Meeting.
The first time l met Grieg was n
autumn day in 1879. Grieg had come
to Christiania in the spring Of that
year, and his fame as conductor and
instructor had already made him the
most sought teacher. What l always
remembered was his courteous greet
ing, his smile of welcome. He was a
very small man, delicately built, as
slender as a boy, but with a rather
large head surrounded by a crown of
glorious blond hair. His hands, too,
were very large, as became a pianist,
but strong and very shapely. And l
have never heard anyone play in a
manner so instinct with the very soul
of music Chat most heavenly and
Elusive Of all arts) as did Grieg.
When he played, his eyes, which we're
generally Of a pale, almost colorless