It is thus obvious that Grieg is of the nervous, sensitive temperament, the temperament of Keats and Stevenson, quick and ardent in feeling, and in art notable for subjective, intimate work rather than for the wide objective point of view. Grieg's music is of value, indeed, just because it is the artistic expression of delicate personal feeling. We shall find that his whole development tended toward a singularly individual, or at most national, utterance; that his efforts toward a complexer or more universal style, such as in poetry we call epic, were unsuccessful; and that his real and inimitable achievement is all in the domain of the pure lyric.
Edvard Grieg was born in Bergen, Norway, in 1843. At an early age he showed musical talent, starting in to learn the piano and theory at six, under his mother's direction. Gesine Grieg, born Hagerup, descendent from a forceful Norwegian family which had produced some famous men, was a woman of musical and poetic instinct and of strong character. She had studied music in Hamburg and in London, and given some concerts and many soirées in Bergen. In a word, her son could not have found a better guide in his first studies. At nine Grieg surprised his school-teacher by submitting in place of a literary composition a set of original variations on a German melody, a substitution which was not kindly received. He was told to stop such nonsense. The artistic temperament revealed itself also in great sensitiveness to the beauty of the somber Northern landscape, and at fifteen Grieg wished to become a painter. Fortunately, however, his musical ability was recognized by the famous violinist Ole Bull, at whose suggestion his parents decided to send him to the Leipsic Conservatory, whither he traveled in 1858. Here again the romanticism of the boy showed itself in his fretfulness under the strict régime of his masters, Hauptmann, Richter, Rietz, Reinecke, and Moscheles, and in his passionate devotion to the works of Schumann and Chopin, who were then looked upon in academic circles as somewhat dangerous revolutionaries. Except for a vacation of some months at home, necessitated by the pulmonary trouble which has ever since weakened Grieg's health, he spent four years in the Conservatory, being graduated in 1862.
In his earliest compositions, produced at this period, the traits that afterwards distinguished him are rather hampered by academic influences and uncertainty of intention. The four Pieces, opus 1, by no means devoid of his peculiar flavor, are yet tentative in style and reminiscent of older masters, particularly Chopin and Mendelssohn. Of the Poetic Tone-pictures, opus 3, the second and fourth are the well-established type of graceful salon piece. Number four, indeed, might almost be a strayed leaf from that gentle but hackneyed work which some modern cynic has called the «Songs without Music.» Yet the very next piece is full-fledged Grieg. Here is the short four-measure phrase, transposed a third and repeated, here the descending chromatic harmonizations, here the raucous fifths as of peasant players, that we shall presently learn to look for among the hall-marks of his writings. But more important than any such technical details is the general animation, producing trenchant rhythm, graceful melody, and warm harmony, that always sparkles in Grieg's best work. In the Poetic Tone-pictures he is already himself, though not his mature self.
Being at graduation somewhat bewildered and uncertain as to his future course, Grieg turned his steps in 1863 to the Danish capital, the home of a great man whom he idolized. «One day,» he writes in an autobiographical fragment, «I had gone out with my friend Matthison-Hansen to Klampenborg. Suddenly he nudged my arm.
«'What is it?' I said.
«'Do you see that little man with the large gray hat?'
«'I see him.'
«'Do you know who it is?' said he.
«'I haven't the least idea.'