Edvard Grieg: Solveig's Song

Nicholas Roerich, Hut in the Forest, 1912
N. K. Roerich International Centre-Museum, Moscow
no copyright infringement intended
(http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/nicholas-roerich/solveig-s-song-hut-in-the-forest-1912)

Perchance both winter and spring will pass,
and next summer, and the entire year: —
but at last you will come, that I know for sure;
and I'll still be waiting, for I once promised I would.

God give you strength, wherever in the world you go!
God give you joy, when you stand before his judgement seat!
Here I'll wait until you come again;
and if you are waiting up above, there we'll meet, my love!

Solveigs sang op. 23 n°19 (Solveig's Song), the well-known work of Grieg, part of his Peer Gynt suite: the last note seems to unfold the whole melody. Is it? A song is a universe, as a book, or a painting; a universe that can be decomposed down to tiny atoms. You cannot go further. Each sound is the smallest unit, the atom, and each one tells its story. Together these stories make this whole universe. We know each sound and can sing it. It's the way they are together that makes them unique. Can one of them contain the whole? I would say no: I think it's the relation between them that makes the last note of Solveig's Song carry the story of all precedent notes.

For those of you knowing Romanian, I would like to recommend an on-line forum where people talk about these matters:

http://forum.fanclub.ro/viewtopic.php?f=289&t=17965&start=60

Karita Mattila , soprano
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Sakari Oramo, conductor
(video by operazaile)

Kanske vil der gå både Vinter og Vår,
og næste Sommer med, og det hele År,
men engang vil du komme, det ved jeg vist,
og jeg skal nok vente, for det lovte jeg sidst.

Gud styrke dig, hvor du i Verden går,
Gud glæde dig, hvis du for hans Fodskammel står.
Her skal jeg vente til du kommer igjen;
og venter du hist oppe, vi træffes der, min Ven!

(Edvard Grieg)

Edvard Grieg: Morgenstimmung

I lived for several years in an apartment on the fourth floor of a tower that had wonderful surroundings. My rooms were overlooking a forest and each morning this was the first thing I was seeing, while still in bed. The forest was setting my Morning Mood, was giving me a healthy mix of optimism and balance. A new day was beginning with its unknowns and challenges, but the forest was there, eternal. Grieg was coming in mind.

Grieg's Morgenstemning (Germ. Morgenstimmung, Engl. Morning Mood) depicts actually a scene in Morocco, with Peer Gynt climbed on a tree and guarding himself form a swarm of apes, while for any listener this music will bring in mind deep forests, grass, rivers and mountains. There was actually a connection to the original hero of the story: like Peer Gynt, I was a wanderer by that time, far away from the country I had lived in, and any new day in that new world was for me astonishing.

(video by freddadieberghutze)

(Edvard Grieg)

Edvard Grieg

Edvard Grieg
(http://portrait.kaar.at/Musikgeschichte%2019.Jhd/image67.html)

I saw long time ago a movie telling in a romanticized way the early years of Edvard Grieg, his struggles (with the others, with himself) to discover his true inner as a musician, to shape his personality. The title of the movie was Song of Norway, it had been made in 1970, a loose adaption of an operetta from 1944.

The movie had been far from successful, but I was young and I liked romanticized stories about great composers. As I grew older and older I became more pretentious in my cinematic tastes, still the movies that I watched in my early years have remained like old pals for me. And also I had throughout the years a constant interest for Norway, for its history, its culture, its specific. I never visited that country and will never do it for sure. But my interest for everything that's Norwegian never faded.

Song of Norway (1970): Opening, Return from Intermission, & Closing Themes
(video by LoreneFaith)

• Morgenstimmung
• Solveig's Song
  

(Old Masters)