Musical creativity of edvard grieg. Edvard Grieg - singer of Scandinavian legends The story of the creation of three pieces of music by Grieg

When the piano sings the mysterious Grieg,
Not only music, but a secret sound of light
Born by the movement of sensitive hands
In an attempt to keep the uniqueness of the moment.
Here beauty meets simplicity
And sincerity - with a mysterious silence,
The severity of the north - with a burning dream
And eternal passion, gentle sounding.
Dreams, memories, reality and dream,
And a ray of love is Nina's crystal voice, *)
Crying Ingrid, a quiet moan of the faithful Solveig,
snow-covered Norway paintings ...
And it seems - all the miracle of being:
Harmony and ancient chaos of feeling,
The immensity of existence and the transience of "I"
Contained the genius of Norwegian art.

(Jelal Kuznetsov)

Edward Grieg. Norwegian idyll

Bergen is located in the western part of Norway, by a beautiful fjord overlooking the North Sea. The roofs of the houses scattered across the surrounding hills clink for weeks and months under the blows of the long fingers of the rain. In the port taverns, old fishermen with beards damp with fog tell tales of fairies and trolls, worldly monsters and terrible storms in calm and stern voices. And only late at night, when the wind goes to sleep in the gateways, their footsteps sound and subside on the streets damp from rain and drowning in fog.

In this city on June 15, 1843, Edvard Grieg was born - the most remarkable composer not only of his homeland, but of the whole of Scandinavia. Before his appearance, the peoples of northern Europe did not appreciate folk music, did not know what a composer could make of it.

They considered the songs and dances of the peasants to be devoid of true value and did not understand that whole centuries of memories were heard in them. So many joys and sorrows, so many unforgettable holidays! Grieg discovered their beauty already in childhood: his mother, who gave him his first music lessons, often played songs and dances heard from the peasants. The monotonous and powerful fluctuation of their rhythms gave birth to melodies that were sometimes cheerful, sometimes sad. At night, before falling asleep, the child remembered them; he got out of bed, stumbling in the dark, quietly descended the stairs and began to improvise on the piano, barely touching the keys so that he would not be taken away.

At school, Grieg had to experience a lot of grief because of arithmetic. To get rid of her, he often ran away from school. Most often, the boy wandered in the rain, until streams of water began to groan from his clothes. Seeing this, the teacher sent him home to change, and while he returned in dry clothes, the arithmetic lesson ended.

Grieg was twelve years old when he showed his fellow practitioners his first piece of music, Variations for Piano on a German Theme, opus 1. But the teacher, noticing what he was doing, leaned over the young musician and gave him a good slap in the face:

It would be better if you remembered the name of the king with whom Olaf Geraldssen negotiated the independence of Norway! he added angrily.

Edward was attending grammar school when the famous Norwegian violinist Ole Bull, a former student of Paganini, visited their home. Probably, even the lightning that unexpectedly fell into the room would not have struck the young Grieg more.

This strong, stooped man with his head always bent to his left shoulder talked about wonderful things. Edward spent hours listening to these stories, swallowing his words and looking at his hands. He had to conjecture how he played the violin with them, because the violinist arrived without an instrument. But he wanted to listen to Edward playing the piano and, upon hearing, predicted a bright future for him. Ole Bulle managed to persuade his parents to send the boy to Leipzig, to the conservatory, famous throughout the continent.

Edward left his homeland with deep regret, but soon got used to the new environment and student life.

In Leipzig, memories of Johann Sebastian Bach and Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy lived everywhere, and the young Norwegian was deeply excited to discover the places where these great musicians gave their concerts, where they were applauded and where they taught their students.

Returning to Bergen, Grieg was struck by the beauty of his country, which he now saw through the eyes of a mature man.

The sea stretches out in the distance, soft, green, shiny.

A bluish haze rose, wavering slightly, over the sun-drenched fjord. Red and yellow flowers were hiding in the grass, bending under the weight of the dew.

Above, in the mountains, the snow lay even in summer, sending cool breezes down to the fjord with laced shores.

Noisy rivers ran through rocky valleys to the sea, they crossed inexorably rustling forests, dense thickets of blackberries and glades covered with fragrant herbs that reached a person's waist.

Near the sea, red granite rocks of the most bizarre shapes protruded from the slope of the mountain. A gentle light lay on everything like glittering pollen, and silent birds chased each other in its rays.

Grieg loved to be among the peasants, to get acquainted with their customs, songs and dances. At the end of almost every week, he left home and toured the country. He heard many tunes, many stories about gnomes and elves, got acquainted with the life and customs of ordinary people. Soon he wrote the dance of the trolls: the Norwegians think that these are tiny spirits that hide in caves and turn to stone as soon as the first ray of the sun touches them. Therefore, they wander through the forest only at night and disappear as soon as the first rays color the tops of the fir trees.

The composer was fascinated by the poetic imagination of his people, the songs and colorful clothes of the peasants. He tried to learn all this as deeply as possible and express it in his music. He gave his first concert in Bergen, including several of his compositions. His sincere excitement amazed the audience, for Grieg had the gift of expressing his feelings in a lively and free form, conveying in them his impressions of the nature of his homeland, of the people he met. Every time, composing music, he saw them so clearly before his eyes, as if he painted their portraits with the help of musical notes.

“As there is no people without art, so art cannot exist without people,” the composer liked to repeat.

While tirelessly improving his skills, the young artist was never satisfied with what he knew; the world of music with its inexhaustible secrets seemed to him too huge for him to consider himself his master. This forced Grieg to go to study again, this time to Copenhagen, where he took lessons from Niels Gade, who was considered the founder of the Scandinavian school of music. There he met the pianist and singer Nina Hagerup, whom he later married, and composed the famous "Love Song" based on the words of Hans Christian Andersen, which he dedicated to his beloved.

During his years in Copenhagen, Grieg became friends with composer Richard Nurdrok, the author of the Norwegian national anthem. The musicians decided to fight shoulder to shoulder for the creation of a national art, alien to foreign influences. They both admired folk music and poetry, and both prided themselves on their originality. On the initiative of these enthusiastic composers, the Euterpa Society was created, which set as its goal the struggle for the development of Scandinavian art.

Inspired by this goal, Grieg launched an extensive concert activity in his homeland. The concert in the Norwegian capital, Oslo, was an unprecedented success and led to the appointment of the composer to the post of Kapellmeister of the Philharmonic Society Orchestra. In this capacity, he wrote one of his most famous works, Concerto in A Minor for Piano and Orchestra, and today it figures in the repertoire of all the major pianists in the world. First performed in Leipzig, it was greeted with thunderous applause from the audience. Critics, however, had a different opinion and, as it happened more than once, were deceived in their assessment. They wrote about "Grieg's pathetic, insignificant piece" without understanding the value and richness of her bright, original melodies. However, not only critics, but also many of Grieg's compatriots showed complete inattention to his work.

Lack of income was very embarrassing for the composer, especially since, not having the means to maintain the orchestra, he was forced to dissolve it for a long time. It was during this period, when so many difficulties and grief fell upon him, that the composer lost his first and only child. The situation seemed completely hopeless when an enthusiastic letter from Franz Liszt arrived from Rome. The great Hungarian pianist and composer sincerely congratulated him on his Piano Sonata, opus 8, and concluded the letter with the words: "I hope that in your homeland you enjoy the success and support you deserve!" Having shown this letter to the Norwegian authorities, the composer finally received a modest subsidy, and for this amount he traveled to Rome. There he personally met Liszt, who eagerly asked the composer about Norway, its art and folk music. But even more valuable than Grieg's stories were his writings. They seemed to Liszt as a treasure trove of feeling characteristic of the country from which their creator came; in these melodies gusts of heroism sounded, the glitter of the sun and the clink of glasses, gusts of wind flew by, beautiful landscapes loomed.

Your music exudes the wild and heady spirit of the northern forests, ”Liszt said to Grieg when he played him the Piano Concerto, brilliantly reproducing all its shades.

Then he took the hand of the Norwegian, who was shorter than him, and shook it tightly. His face shone with joy, he spoke incessantly, admiring the sincerity and novelty of Edvard Grieg's truly folk art.

Liszt's support was the most important event in Grieg's life. Gripped by a new inspiration and passion for creativity, he returned to his homeland. There he began to look for a quiet secluded corner where he could settle and write music, not disturbed by anyone. He wandered from village to village, from one fjord to another, but did not stop anywhere, not finding the solitude and peace necessary for creativity.

After many unsuccessful attempts, the composer, whose financial situation had meanwhile improved significantly thanks to concerts and royalties, finally bought a house in the wilderness, not far from Bergen. It was a stone building with a small turret on the roof and stained glass windows, surrounded by pine trees and jasmine thickets; the composer named it Trollhaugen, that is, "Troll Hill".

There were friends of the composer, ordinary, unknown people and celebrities, such as the writer Björnstierne Björnson, the German composer Franz Bauer, the playwright Heinrich Ibsen. When Ibsen remade his poem Peer Gynt for theater, he asked Grieg to write music for it. There, a suite of the same name was born, which gained fame rarely achieved by such compositions. She brought the composer prosperity and fame by persuading the Norwegian government to give him an annual allowance.

Never intoxicated by success, tirelessly studying the art of his people, Edvard Grieg was one of those national artists who are able to discern and reproduce the subtlest nuances of folk thought and feeling. Its romantic music contains the melodies and rhythms of Norse folklore, ancient songs and dances of the land of the ancient Vikings.

Until the last days of his life, preserving his young soul, Grieg tirelessly wrote works for voice and piano, for solo instruments, chamber music and pieces for orchestra. He especially loved the song in which the poetry of his people sounded. His generous heart was ready to accept everything beautiful with love. He believed that his works are sparks flying out of the soul of the people.

When the composer died, fifty thousand Norwegians accompanied him on his last journey. His ashes were buried under a stone embankment, on a high rocky promontory, inaccessible to visitors. There, undisturbed by anyone, the author of Solveig's Song and Anitra's Dance peacefully listens to the sound of the North Sea and the hum of the polar wind in the evergreen forests of Norway.

Sounds of music

Grieg's work is vast and varied. It is diverse both in genre and subject matter. In his writings, we find pictures of folk life, native nature, and images of folk fiction, and human life in all its fullness. The most famous are his suites from the music for Ibsen's drama "Peer Gynt".

In the field of piano music, Grieg played a very important role. But first, one of the characteristic features of his talent should be noted - no matter what the composer writes about, no matter what genre he turns to, all his works are fanned with lyricism, a lively and loving attitude. It is not without reason that PI Tchaikovsky wrote: “Listening to Grieg, we instinctively realize that this music was written by a person driven by an irresistible attraction through sounds to pour out an influx of feelings and moods of a deeply poetic nature”.

Imbued with the spirit of Norwegian folk melodies, he put them in the basis of almost all of his works. Especially vividly characteristic features of creativity manifested themselves in the piano works of Grieg.

Edvard Grieg has turned to the piano throughout his life. His piano miniatures were for him a kind of "diary" in which the composer wrote down his personal impressions and observations, thoughts and feelings. In these miniatures, Grieg appears as a real writer, vividly and figuratively describing the pictures of life.

The composer left about one hundred and fifty piano pieces. Seventy of them were published in ten notebooks called "Lyric Pieces". They are in many ways close to "Musical Moments" and "Impromptu" by Schubert, "Songs without Words" by Mendelssohn.

Grieg's Lyric Pieces show how many thoughts and feelings the composer gave to his homeland. This theme manifested itself in different ways in the plays - in magnificent musical landscapes, in genre scenes, in the images of folk fiction.

For example, Norwegian Melody (listening) draws a whole dance scene. We can clearly see the figures of the dancers, different "steps" of the dance - the whirling spring dance. The character is also emphasized by a kind of accompaniment that imitates the sound of folk instruments.

"Gangar" ("Peasant march") (listening) - popular in Norway dance-procession (gang - step). This is an old pair dance of a calm and stately solemn character. As we listen to this piece, we can imagine a procession of dancers. They seem to first approach us, and then move away.

One of the most striking examples of Grieg's musical fiction is his play "Procession of the Dwarfs" (listening). Music draws us a bizarre fairytale world, the underworld of trolls and gnomes, these terrible and evil dwarfs. The middle section of the play depicts enchanting beauty, clarity of nature.

One of the most joyful and jubilant works by Grieg is "Wedding Day at Trollhaugen" (hearing) (Trollhaugen is a place in Norway where Grieg's villa was located. The composer spent the last years of his life here. Despite the fact that most of the Lyric Pieces "are miniatures of a chamber character, this piece stands out among them for its brightness, scale, virtuoso brilliance.

Wedding marches are prominent in Norwegian folklore. And this procession by Grieg sounds confident and proud. But at the same time, the characteristic "bagpipe" bass gives it the simplicity and charm of a rural scene. The piece also exists in an orchestral version. Grieg presented this work to his wife Nina on June 11 for their wedding anniversary.

Among the "Lyric plays" we find light, poetic images of nature: "Butterfly", "Bird", "Spring". These pieces show the composer's rare gift to create a precise and delicate drawing with a few strokes.

A striking example of this is the play "Bird" (listening), as if woven from short fluttering trills and a jumping rhythm.

The play "Spring" (listening) is the apotheosis of the awakening of nature. The unique charm of the sound images is reminiscent of the touchingly uncertain appearance of snowdrops. In a letter to the publisher, Grieg called this collection of plays "spring songs."

Thin pages of lyrical expressions are such plays of the cycle as "Waltz-impromptu", "Elegy" (listening).

One of the most lyrical episodes of Grieg's work is the play that opens the cycle - "Arietta" (listening). She is distinguished by amazing purity, naivety, spontaneity, peace of mind. The composer used a very subtle device in its conclusion: such a peculiar ellipsis. The song breaks off on the floor with a phrase, as if the singer's thought was carried off somewhere into the distance.

The presentation used reproductions of paintings by artists: Hans Andreas Dahl, Adolf Tiedemann and Hans Gude; photos of the sights of Norway.

10

The influence of music on a person 03.09.2016

Dear readers, today we are continuing our conversation in the section. I invite you to plunge into the world of romance. We will get acquainted with the era of romanticism and the music of the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg. Lilia Schadkovsky, a reader of my blog, a music teacher with great experience, invites us on such a journey. Those who often visit the blog know Lilia from some articles.

We are very pleased with your response. Thank you very much Lilia for her interesting stories. And I strongly advise you to listen to musical fragments with your children, tell them about Grieg's music, I think they will also be interested in listening to a lot. When I worked at a music school, my children and I often took compositions into our repertoire, often I gave ensembles, and I myself also enjoyed touching this music. And now I will hand over to Lilia.

Good afternoon to all readers of Irina's blog. The beautiful summer time has come to an end. And so you want to light candles on a cool evening, pour a cup of hot tea, sit on your favorite sofa and listen to music.

Our dear readers! I think it will be interesting for you to know how the wonderful music of life sounds! Do you hear? The murmur of a transparent brook in the summer heat, the chirping of birds, the rustle of the wind in the foliage, the awakening of nature. Wonderful music of life, revealing joy for us! The music is so bright and colorful that without words it becomes clear what it is about. Let's start our musical journey.

"Music is the only world language, it does not need to be translated, the soul speaks in it with the soul." Berthold Auerbach

E. Grieg. Morning. From suite "Peer Gynt"

A very popular melody by Grieg, written for the first part of Ibsen's play "Peer Gynt". This music is now associated with typically Scandinavian scenes. But originally this melody was intended to depict the sunrise in the Sahara Desert.

Wonderful images of the dream world of the era of romanticism

It was not only the triumph of nature that became the object of worship of romantic composers. But also the marvelous images of the world of dreams, man, his lofty feelings and spirituality - such colors are used to paint the musical culture of the era of romanticism.

Romanticism is an artistic trend in art that developed in the late 18th - early 19th centuries in Europe and America. The word "romanticism" (French romantisme) means fantastic, picturesque. Indeed, this direction has enriched the world with new colors and sounds. Composers, using musical means, expressed a deep interest in the harmony of the world, in the human personality, his feelings and emotions.

The most prominent representatives of the romantic school of composers were Niccolo Paganini, Franz Liszt, Frederic Chopin, Franz Schubert, Robert Schuman Giuseppe Verdi, Edvard Grieg. In Russia A. Alyabyev, P. Tchaikovsky, M. Glinka, M. Mussorgsky worked in this style.

There are many countries in the world, but today we will make a trip to Norway with the help of music, to visit Edward Grieg, a composer of the period of romanticism.

Music by Edward Grieg

"If anyone could show the world the proud and pure spirit of Norway, full of dark power, passionate romance and dazzling light, then it is certainly Edward Hagerup Grieg."

Norway is fabulously beautiful and majestic. A harsh, but stunningly beautiful land, the land of dazzling white mountain peaks and blue lakes, the land of the magical northern lights and blue sky.

Folk music, songs, dances, fascinating ancient legends and tales are rich and original. E. Grieg's music has absorbed all the richness of fabulous Scandinavian folklore. Fantastic images of trolls and gnomes living in dark caves, exploits of folk heroes in unforgettable melodies are probably known to you.

"Singer of Scandinavian Legends"

Edward Hagerup Grieg (1843-1907) - Norwegian composer, music figure, pianist, conductor, whose work was formed under the influence of Norwegian folk culture. Edvard Grieg's musical language is deeply national and it is not surprising that the Norwegians are very fond of his music.

E. Grieg. A bit of biography

Childhood and youth. Edvard Grieg was born on June 15, 1843 in the seaside town of Bergen, a major shopping center in Western Norway. Edward's father, Alexander Grieg, served as the British consul in Bergen, his mother, Gesina Hagerup, was a pianist. They gave their children an excellent and solid education, taught music, as was customary in wealthy families.

Musical evenings were often held in the house, and these first musical impressions determined the future fate of Edward. At the age of four he played the piano, and at the age of twelve he began to compose his own music. The famous Norwegian violinist and composer Bull Ole, having heard Edward's music, advised his parents to send the young talent to study at the Leipzig Conservatory.

A new stage in life

After training, Grieg returns to his homeland and rushes to the Copenhagen Center for Musical Culture. The wonderful concerts for which the Gewandhaus concert hall was famous helped Edward to understand and fall in love with romanticism.

Here he also met the greatest storyteller G. Andersen and playwright G. Ibsen. who literally proclaimed the idea of ​​nationality in art, This theme found a warm response in the heart of the composer.

In 1865 E. Grieg and his comrades organized the musical society "Euterpa", which actively promoted folk art, organized concerts. And in 1898, he founded the first Norwegian folk music festival in Bergen (this festival is still being held today). Grieg felt a tremendous surge of creativity.

The magic power of Grieg's music

One after another, wonderful works appear: romances, songs - poems, piano pieces and concerts, the music of which merges with the feeling of the harsh northern region, native nature.

E. Grieg. Concerto in A minor (1 movement) for piano and orchestra

"The composer tells God about his perception of nature. The Lord listens and smiles, he is pleased: there are brilliant images among his creations ..."

But live direct sketches from nature: "Bird", "Butterfly", "Stream" from the cycle "Lyric Pieces" - favorite works of many concert programs, including concert programs of children's music schools.

E. Grieg. Little bird

"Birdie" is an example of the composer's rare gift with a few strokes to create an accurate image of a bird from "singing" trills and "jumping" rhythm.

E. Grieg. Creek

But the view opens into the valley, the air is transparent and cool, and the brook is silvery on the stones.

E. Grieg. Butterfly

The composer wrote it with inimitable ease and grace, conveying the fragility and grace of the image.

Images of folk fiction

In collaboration with Anderson and Ibsen, Grieg creates in his music the heroes of the Scandinavian epic, Icelandic legends and Norwegian sagas, unforgettable images of trolls and gnomes. Listening to the music of Grieg, you feel that elves flutter among the flowers, that a dwarf is behind every stone, and a troll will now jump out of the forest hole.

E. Grieg. Procession of the Dwarfs

This unusual fabulous march, known to almost all of us for its dynamics and bright melody. Often used in many fairy tales, cartoons, theatrical performances, advertising.

E. Grieg. Dance of elves

Once before going to bed, E. Grieg read Andersen's fairy tale "Thumbelina". He fell asleep, and in his head sounded: "A little girl was sitting in a flower, and small butterflies were flying around her" ... This is how the work "Dance of the Elves"

Music by E. Grieg for Ibsen's drama "Peer Gynt"

But the most significant work, a true masterpiece, was the music by E. Grieg for the drama by G. Ibsen "Peer Gynt". The premiere of the chamber symphony work took place in 1876 and was a tremendous success. Moreover, this historical performance became the beginning of the world fame of the composer and playwright.

Per - the main character went to wander the world in search of happiness. He visited many countries. On the way, he had to endure many trials. Per achieves fabulous wealth, but loses everything. Forty years later, tired and exhausted, he returns to his homeland. He is seized with deep despair - life is wasted in vain. When he arrived, he learned that Solveig had been waiting for him all these years:

“Winter will pass, and spring will flicker, the flowers will wither, they will be covered with snow. But you will return to me, my heart tells me, I will stay true to you, I will only live with you ... "

E. Grieg. Solveig's song

This piercing, exciting melody has become a symbol of love and fidelity. There is an aching sadness in it, and resignation to fate, and enlightenment. But the main thing is faith!

Many amazing things fall to the lot of Per. Here he found himself in the kingdom of trolls, fantastic evil creatures, subjects of the Mountain King.

E. Grieg. In the cave of the mountain king

The Fantastic Procession is one of Grieg's most recognizable melodies. It is also often used in children's programs, commercials, sounds in such films as "Demons", "Sensation", "Dead Snow", "Interns".

E. Grieg. Anitra's dance

Traveling through the Arabian desert, Peer Gynt ends up with the chief of the Bedouin tribe. The chief's daughter is trying to charm Pera with her beauty.

Grieg's work was formed under the influence of folk culture, its beautiful song motives and dance melodies.

E. Grieg. Norwegian dance from the ballet "Peer Gynt"

Dreams Come True

Grieg dreamed very much of a house on the seashore, of a calm and creative atmosphere. And only in the forty-second year of his life his dream came true. High in the Norwegian mountains, in a place with the fabulous name of Trollhaugen (Troll Hill, or "Magic Hill"), there is this beautiful house in which the Grieg family settled. The location of the estate served as a source of inspiration, here new musical images were born.

E. Grieg. Wedding day in Trollhaugen

"Wedding Day in Trollhaungen" is an image of the folk life, one of the most joyful, jubilant works of Grieg.

Edvard Grieg and his wife Nina Hageup spent the warm season in this house. They often walked together, admired the scenery, and in the evenings discussed new ideas.

Grieg was very fond of both this house and this surrounding divine beauty of nature: “I saw such beauties of nature ... a huge chain of snowy mountains with fantastic shapes rose directly from the sea, while the dawn in the mountains was four o'clock in the morning, a bright summer night and the whole landscape was as if stained with blood. It was unique! "

No other picturesque places could replace the harsh beauty of his homeland. And this "wild" land with pristine beauty attracts millions of fans of the composer.

Today, a museum has been created in the estate, where admirers can not only see the unique nature, but also hear the unique magical sounds of Edward Grieg's music.

According to the composer's will, Grieg was buried in a grave carved into a sheer rock. There, 28 years later, Nina, the only woman of Grieg and his muse, found her peace.

Such is Edvard Grieg - a bright, powerful composer, revealing the secrets of Scandinavian legends in his music and remaining in the world musical culture forever. The music of E. Grieg will sound as long as the Norwegian rocks will stand, while the sea surf beats against the shore.

I thank Lilia for the information. As I already wrote at the very beginning of the article, Grieg's music rarely leaves anyone indifferent. She likes both children and adults. And I also remembered a concert when I worked at a pedagogical school in the Far East. With my friend at the reporting concert, we played Grieg's Concerto in A minor on two pianos. Lilia was talking about him in the article. What amazing music, how we were received then…. And how interesting it was for us to work together. We also gained such experience.

I wish everyone a wonderful mood, simple joys in life, all the warmest and kindest.

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"Creativity of E. Grieg and his piano works"

201 6 year

"Creativity of E. Grieg and his piano works"

Introduction ……………………………………………………………………… ... 1

§1. Edvard Grieg is a classic of Norwegian music ……………………………… 2-5

§2. Acquaintance of students with the work of Grieg in the process of studying it ... ..5-8

§3. Works by Grieg in the piano class of the school of arts. ……… .8-23

Conclusion …………………………. ………………. ………………………… ..23

References ………………… ... …………………………………… ... 23-24

Introduction

An artist of a bright individual character, Grieg went down in the history of world musical culture as a great Norwegian composer, whose music embodied all the best that his homeland has created for many centuries: the heroics of the folk epic and the mysterious fabulousness, the energy of folk dance and wonderful, tender lyrics. In Ibsen's words, it contains "both the memory of the past and the power of love."

The intellectual and spiritual life of each person is based on the national culture to which he belongs. Its importance for the development of creative potential cannot be overestimated: “There is a law of human nature and culture, by virtue of which all great things can be said by a person or a people only in their own way, and all genius will be born precisely in the bosom of national experience, spirit and way of life” (Ilyin I. A.). Grieg's work is a vivid confirmation of this law, and

acquaintance with the heritage of the great composer helps students-musicians to comprehend many patterns inherent in the processes of forming the creative style of any master.

§1. Edvard Grieg - classic of Norwegian music

The national and world significance of Grieg's art is best revealed from those short words with which he tried to express his creative credo, his goals and objectives as an artist: “I recorded the folk music of my country. I drew rich treasures in the folk tunes of my homeland, and from this still unexplored source of the Norwegian folk soul I tried to create a national art. "

Grieg told the whole world about his country. About the uniqueness of Norwegian nature with its rocks, fjords and gorges. About the whimsical climate: on a narrow strip of the coast there is a warm green spring, and in the mountains there is a winter cold. About the harsh life of the people of this country - pressed by the mountains to the sea, who must settle near the water and always fight with a stone, arranging dwellings on bare steep cliffs.

Grieg conveyed in music the greatness of the Norwegian nature, indomitable

the spirit of the people, its amazing sagas and fairy tales.

The melody of Norwegian folk music has a number of characteristic

features. First of all, the unusualness of its interval sequences is impressive. Often, the melodic line unfolds in the form of a complex ornament, in layering of various grace notes, mordents, trills, melodic detentions or short inviting intonations. The harmonic language of Norwegian music is characterized by modal variability, widespread use of the Lydian mode, modality. As a result, a tonal "co-game" is formed, which revives the rhythm action, gives mobility, impulsiveness and astringency to the sound. Of particular importance in Norwegian musical folklore is rhythm, a characteristic feature of which, as for the mode, is variability. A capricious change of two-beat and three-beat, bizarre accents, changing groupings of time signatures - all this is typical of Norwegian folk music. In it, an important factor is the very contrast of the figurative content, the saturation of changeable moods, sudden transitions from pathos to heavy thoughts, from melancholy

to a light humor, which sometimes gives rise to a special ballad tone, in many respects coming from the contrasts of life and landscapes in Norway.

Typical features of Norwegian musical folklore found a peculiar reflection in Grieg's piano music and largely determined the originality of its style. Grieg's interpretation of various folk dances is also of interest. In Norway, dances with two-beat and three-beat time signatures have become widespread.

Three-beat dances - springar, springlake - differed from each other in different use of syncopation, accents, characteristic meter changes, which gave a unique originality to each dance. Two-beat dances are classified into two types: 2/4 and 6/8. First of all, these are gangar and halling. Gangar is a pair dance-procession, halling (as a rule, has a faster pace than gangar) is a solo male dance, known throughout most of the country.

Grieg's music had genetic links not only with Norwegian national art, but also with Western European culture in general. The best traditions of German romanticism, embodied primarily in the work of Schumann, had a significant impact on the formation of the creative method of Grieg. This was noted by the composer himself, calling himself "the romantic of the Schumann school." Grieg, like Schumann, is close to romanticism in the sphere of lyric and psychological aspirations, reflecting the world of complex and subtle human feelings. Other aspects of Schumann's romanticism were also reflected in Grieg's work: acute observation, the transmission of life phenomena in their unique originality - that is, those qualities that determine the distinctive features of romantic art.

Heir to romantic traditions, Grieg adopted general principles

"Schumann's", poetic program, which is most fully revealed in the collections of "Lyric Pieces", to which the composer addressed throughout almost his entire creative life. Grieg's piano miniatures have “descriptive names”: these are impressions (“At the Carnival” op. 19 no. 3), a landscape sketch (“In the mountains” op. 19 no. 1), sometimes memories (“It was once” op. 71 No. 1), coming from the heart, are light in Grigo style and specifically “northern”. The artistic goal of the composer is not the embodiment of the plot, but, first of all, the transmission of elusive moods that are born in our minds with images of real life.

Attention should be paid to the distinctive features of Grieg's composer's writing. This is, first of all, the melody of the composer, permeated with intonations typical for Norwegian music: such, for example, as the characteristic move from the first degree of the scale through the opening tone to the fifth (to the dominant of the scale). This intonation plays an important role in many of Grieg's works (for example, the Piano Concerto). Grigovskaya intonation. as a certain melodic turn, it became a kind of national emblem of the composer.

Rhythm is of great importance to Grieg. An essential feature of Norwegian dance rhythm is the predominance of pointed triple-dotted rhythms, which Grieg widely used not only in genre-dance miniatures, but also in works of large form - in moments of dramatic tension. Folk rhythmic elements organically and naturally entered his music.

The composer's handwriting is characterized by the utmost laconicism of the statement, rigor and grace of form, while the smallest details are saturated with significant semantic expressiveness. Hence the repetitions characteristic of Grieg - literal, sequential, variant.

§ 2. Acquaintance of students with the work of Grieg in the process of studying it.

Getting acquainted with the works of Grieg, it should be noted that his activities are inextricably linked with the historical development of Norwegian culture and with the tendencies of Norwegian social life in the mid-19th century. For a long time, Norway bore the burden of heavy dependence on neighboring countries - Denmark, Sweden, which suppressed its original culture.

The second half of the 19th century was marked by the development of the national liberation movement. The composer's work was generated by this wonderful time, when in the struggle for political and cultural independence in Norway, its artistic traditions developed and strengthened, its literature, drama and poetry flourished.

The most prominent representatives of the national revival in literature were G. Ibsen and B. Bjernson. Grieg's creative collaboration with these writers brought worldwide fame to Norwegian art. Both writers - each in their own way - had a noticeable influence on the formation of the composer's aesthetic views.

Grieg's work was in tune with contemporary Norwegian fine art. The landscape painters H. Dahl, Tiedemann and Gude dedicated their work to their native nature and folk life.

H Orvezh landscape painter H. Dahl - a subtle master of landscape chooses friendly, light

corners of native nature:

sunny forest edge in summer, lush meadow with shepherdess and kids. Idyllic folk

scenes of the romantic painter are involuntarily associated with the musical landscapes of Grieg: "Stream" (op. 62, no. 4), "Locke" (op. 66, no. 1). In the play "Morning" (from the first suite to "Peer Gynt") the light, transparent melody resembles a calm, serene shepherd's tune in a green meadow.

On the canvases of the artist A. Tiedemann, we can observe the life of Norwegian peasants. The famous genre painting by Tiedemann "The Wedding Procession in Hardanger" (1849), imbued with an enlightened lyrical mood, vividly echoes the plays of Grieg from the cycle "Peasant Dances" op 72, "The Wedding Procession is Passing" Op 19 # 2. Spring is a frequent guest on Norwegian canvases. painters. Melting snow, running streams in the lyrical landscapes of F. Taulov, they are consonant with Grigov's miniature "Stream" (op. 62, no. 4). In the play "Spring" (op. 43, no. 6), lyrical mood is combined with the subtlety of the image. Grieg glorifies spring more than once, creating picturesque paintings in vocal and piano works, many of which are true pearls in their genre.

K. Krog is an artist of a later time. On his canvases, laborious Norway is depicted - rural and urban. Krogh has a whole gallery of expressive female portraits, in which images of women peasants and townspeople, representatives of the intelligentsia are conveyed with psychological penetration. Grieg has similar portraits - "I know this little girl" op. 17 # 16; "Song of Solveig", "Lullaby of Solveig".

Acquaintance of students with samples of Scandinavian painting and literature, of course, contributes to the development of associative thinking. The principle of developmental learning is implemented in two aspects. The principle of developmental learning is implemented in two aspects. The first concerns the development of the artistic and aesthetic consciousness of students, introducing them through the study of the works of Grieg to the phenomena of world musical culture. The other is the musical and performing aspect - affects the embodiment of knowledge in the specifics of musical performance.

In the practice of teaching musical performance, the main methods of working with a student are the verbal method, as well as direct visual and illustrative demonstration on the instrument. Along with the performance of the studied works, attending concerts of outstanding performers, an important place in the development of the professional thinking of young musicians is occupied by the purposeful use of modern TCO, in particular, sound reproducing devices that allow you to involve the necessary audio and video materials in the educational process, in this case, recordings of Grieg's compositions. made by domestic and foreign musicians-performers (D. Adni, M. Pletnev, Ya Austbo, etc.).

§3. Works by Grieg in the piano class of the school of arts.

The piano has always been Grieg's favorite instrument. It was to this instrument, dear to him, that he was accustomed from childhood to trust his cherished thoughts. In a long line of piano collections and cycles he created ("Poetic Pictures", "Humoresques", "Cycle from People's Life", "Album Leaves", "Waltzes-Whims", "Lyric Pieces", "Moods") from early to In recent years, one general sphere of lyrical moods and one general tendency of poetic programmaticity has been clearly traced. This tendency is most fully revealed in the cycle of "Lyric Pieces", which the composer turned to throughout almost his entire creative life.

Lyric pieces make up the bulk of Grieg's piano work. They continue the type of piano chamber music represented by Schubert's Musical Moments and Impromptu, Mendelssohn's Songs without Words. The spontaneity of expression, lyricism, the expression in the play of predominantly one mood, a tendency to small scales, simplicity and accessibility of artistic design and technical means - these are the features of a romantic

piano miniatures, which are also characteristic of Grieg's Lyric Pieces. "Lyric pieces" can be called "the composer's musical diary", here Grieg "entered" his most diverse impressions, feelings, thoughts.

The Lyric Plays shows how much of his thoughts and feelings Grieg gave to his homeland. The theme of the homeland sounds in the solemn "Native Song" (op. 12), in the calm and majestic song "In the Motherland" (op. 43), in the genre-lyrical scene "Home" (op. 62), in numerous folk

dance pieces, conceived as genre sketches. The theme of the homeland continues in the magnificent "Musical Landscapes" by Grieg ("Spring" - op. 43, "Nocturne" - op. 54), in the peculiar motives of folk-fantasy plays ("Procession of the Dwarfs", "Cobalt"). Live, direct sketches "from nature" ("Bird", "Butterfly"), echoes of artistic impressions ("The Watchman's Song", written under

impression of Shakespeare's "Macbeth"), a musical portrait ("Gade"), pages of lyrical statements ("Arietta", "Waltz-impromptu", "Memories") - this is the range of images of this cycle. Impressions of life, fanned by lyricism, a lively feeling of the author - this is the content and emotional tone of the cycle, which explains its name: "Lyric Pieces". The peculiarities of the style of "lyric pieces" are as varied as their content.

Very many plays are characterized by extreme laconicism, scanty and precise strokes of miniature; but in some plays a striving for picturesqueness, a wide, contrasting composition ("Procession of the Dwarfs", "Gangar", "Nocturne") is revealed. In some pieces one can hear the subtlety of the chamber style ("Dance of the Elves"), others sparkle with bright colors, impress with the virtuoso brilliance of concert performance ("Wedding Day at Trollhaugen").

The peculiarities of the style of "lyric pieces" are as varied as their content. Very many plays are characterized by extreme laconicism, scanty and precise strokes of miniature; but in some plays a striving for picturesqueness, a wide, contrasting composition ("Procession of the Dwarfs", "Gangar", "Nocturne") is revealed. In some pieces one can hear the subtlety of the chamber style ("Dance of the Elves"), others sparkle with bright colors, impress with the virtuoso brilliance of concert performance ("Wedding Day at Trollhaugen").

"Lyric Pieces" are distinguished by their great genre diversity. Here we meet elegy and nocturne, lullaby and waltz, song and arietta. Very often Grieg turns to the genres of Norwegian folk music (spring dance, halling, gangar). The artistic value of the cycle of "Lyric Pieces" is given by the principle of programmaticity. Each piece opens with a title defining its poetic image, and each piece strikes with the simplicity and subtlety with which it is embodied in music.

"Poetic task".

Arietta

The charming theme of this play, in a modified form, reappears in the very last lyric play, Echoes, Op. 71, No. 7, thus closing the huge league, covering the entire cycle, all ten Works.

There are three independent voices in "Arietta", and the secret of success lies in the realization of this three-voice. First, pay attention to the gentle, melancholic melody, but do not forget that the arpeggiated filling of the texture requires a separate work here. It is advisable to single out a pair of voices in Arietta: bass + melody, bass + arpeggio, melody + arpeggio. Then everything will eventually unite into an inextricable trio, where, nevertheless, each voice will retain its individuality. Pay close attention to the dynamics of the bass line, use the pedal to ensure it is present without being too loud. Sound-like

harp figure in the middle voice should be smooth and soft, and the soprano - tenderly melodious. Be careful with phrasing as well. The opening section consists of two-bar phrases in which the first bar is similar to the off-bar. After the first four bars, the flow of the melody becomes more differentiated. The articulation in the middle voice needs to be made more independent of other voices. This is one of the subtleties of Arietta.

Waltz

This is the first waltz of many in the Lyric Pieces. Although it is often played by children, it is quite suitable for concert performances. In this case, imagine fine china and air ballet. Technically, this involves careful articulation and light touching the keys with your fingertips. The phrase in the right hand remains independent of the typical 3/4 size waltz in the left hand at all times.

Don't play motives marked forte, too loud. Remember that

perform miniature: make miniature and dynamics.

Piano subito with a fermat in step 18 gives an excellent effect.

Note that the main theme sounds twice piano, but for the third time - pianissimo... This subtlety is important for the form of the piece. The same dynamic contrast occurs in the code - piano dolce in measure 71, pianissimo in bar 77. Bar 63 and following sound like a waltz is about to turn into a Norwegian springar.

It seems appropriate to play quarters staccato in a free rhythm.

Although Grieg did not indicate this, one might think about playing the coda a little slower than the rest of the piece. Try to give it a somewhat pastoral character. The middle section in A major can be played in a similar way. These differences, however, should be barely noticeable.

Watchman song

"The Watchman's Song" was very popular in the time of Grieg and remains so today. Pay attention to the indication alla breve: should be heard as 2/2 rather than 4/4. It will also help emphasize the simplicity that Grieg requires. Withstand legato at the beginning of the piece, which sounds in unison, now three-part, now four-part. Play this part modestly, as if you had no idea about the fateful event that is about to take place.

The intermezzo from this song is famous. Imagine the cry of an owl as it murders in the darkness of the night. Grieg wrote The Watchman's Song after attending a performance of Shakespeare's Macbeth, so try to capture the horror of this mighty drama in your performance. Imagine that the watchman, while walking around, notices or rather glimpses the atrocity being committed. Did he hear something or, when he passed by, was a blow secretly delivered nearby? Perhaps the latter interpretation is preferable. The seven-thirty-second figures should be very quiet but distinct. A slight movement of the hand is needed here, but the hand should remain as still as possible. Rising triplets should not suddenly get loud. Start with piano and gradually increase the volume.

Dance of elves

This charming little virtuoso piece is reminiscent of Mendelssohn's music. All notes need to be played with your fingertips to achieve an easy, fast staccato. You will need the help of your entire hand, but keep your brush low over the keys. Side wrist movements are useful when you win eighths, but keep them to a minimum so as not to disrupt the coordination of movements. Such a technique can easily lead to

blurry sound and inaccurate rhythm. "Dance of the Elves" should be soft, light and rhythmically accurate. Don't overdo it with forte... After all, you do not want to frighten off the elves! However, you need to practice loudly, and then make the sound a little louder than pp.

Try to vividly imagine how elves swarm around, hide, reappear and finally disappear altogether. Only in bars 29-30 and 70-72 does Grieg use the pedal. This gives the piece an extra dimension - an impressionistic haze or. maybe the wisps of fog in which the elves disappear.

Folk tune

Grieg had an uncanny ability to create melodies with a truly Norwegian sound. While Folk Tune is undoubtedly inspired by the inexhaustible treasures of the folk music of his home country, it is undeniably his own find. Do not play "Folk Tune" too slowly: pay attention to what Grieg wrote Con moto. One of the features of the Norwegian temperament is melancholy, therefore, in order to convey this state, the play must be played simply, artlessly, sincerely. Combine two phrases of four measures at the beginning in an eight-bar period so that the second phrase sounds like a response to the first. You can gradually increase the volume over the first four measures, and then let it decrease in measures 5 - 8: then the message of the eight measure will sound like a single period.

In bars 3 and 4, it is natural to give the tone a slightly lighter shade. In measure 7, it becomes darker. try to imitate a chest voice. "Folk tune" from start to finish is like a dream. Henrik Wergeland once said about his home country that it is a beautiful, majestic lyre, full of hope to become something warm and musical. This hope is heard in the sounds of Grigov's "People's Tune".

Album Leaf

A leaf from which album could this play be? Maybe a secret love message from the days of Grieg's youth? In the play, one senses the impermanence inherent in early adolescence. Whether he writes to her or she writes to him remains unknown, but it is clear that both are involved. The dialogue is especially clearly audible in the eight-bar periods. Undoubtedly, “he” (the melody in the tenor voice) speaks for sixteen continuous measures, but still “she” (the melody in the soprano voice) leaves behind both the first and the last word. The grace notes should not be too long, otherwise the piece will sound archaic. to make them short, think to the right, that is, think of them as belonging to the next note rather than the preceding note. As you practice, play them almost at the same time, then gradually separate them. In dialogue between right and left hands, never play the given tune twice in the same way. Use your imagination! You can turn a piece into a gripping short conversation, secretly recorded on someone's personal album page.

Kobold
in the mythology of Northern Europe was good-natured brownie ... However, in response to neglect, he could create chaos and disorder in the house. In Germanic mythology, the Kobold is a special kind elves or alves ... Kobolds are credited with making fun of people, they constantly mess around and make noise. They are described as dwarfs usually ugly; their color from the fire in the hearth is bright red.

Minuet (Days Gone)

The play is written in a complex three-part form and is built on a contrasting comparison of the first, minor, and middle, major, parts. Despite the sharp change in mood and tonal contrast, the play is a complete whole, thanks to the motivational-thematic unity between the sections.

The first part of the Minuet is written in a simple two-part form. The second part is a written out recapitulation, but in a slightly changed form.

The theme of the first part of the Minuet consists of two elements: lively, danceable and more calm, measured. The main performing difficulties of the first section of the first part: rhythmic accuracy (dotted rhythm, triplets, polyrhythm); good sounding of double notes (with a predominance of upper sound), maintaining a long sound line, accurate dynamics. Moreover, the first climax is encountered here.

The second section of the first movement is characterized by a great liveliness brought in by the left hand and a very bright development of the climax, accompanied by tonal instability, the use of octave and chord techniques, and large dynamic shifts from pianissimo to fortissimo. A lot of work requires free, bright performance of octaves and chords. The last conduction of the theme at the end of the first part is a kind of difficulty; it removes the climax and brings us back to our original mood. The middle part of the Minuet (siringar) also consists of two sections, in turn, each section is divided into 3 sentences. The brightest, most impulsive, climax is the third sentence. It is built on the basis of octave and chord techniques, here the stretto technique is applied. It seems that the theme here reaches its intensity and unexpectedly and unexpectedly breaks off on the last, final chord. In order to return to the original mood, Grieg uses here a small chord in D major, it must be played pianissimo and at a slower tempo. The second section of the middle part completely repeats the first section, but at a more lively pace, with a brighter

sonority.

Song of the homeland

It was Christmas Eve and Björnstiern Björnson is said to have run up the stairs of Grieg's Oslo apartment, shouting, "I found the lyrics for the Norwegian national anthem!" Grieg already wrote No. 8 and played it to Bjornson; he liked the play so much that he decided to write words for it - 32 lines, no less! The piece didn’t become a Norwegian anthem in the end, but that’s how it should be played. It must be rhythmic to match the name and indication maestoso... Play half notes in free

in a manner and with sufficient pedal use to achieve a bell-like sound, maintain their full duration.

Contrasting piano from measure 9 should sound as much as possible legato- like a brass band playing quietly and together.

"Lone Wanderer"

Imagine the majestic Norwegian cliffs, swirling waterfalls that roar and roar from the cliffs in summer and freeze into bizarre transparent statues in winter. The thick ice on the lakes is so transparent that you can see frightened fish rushing under it. Listen to the sounding music. It's called The Lonely Wanderer. Isn't it as if a person walking through the mountainous country of Norway gazes with admiration at the world around him?

"Butterfly"

One of the finest examples of Grieg's sophisticated chromatic style. The music (with its play of harmonic colors) is very graceful and exemplifies the light, transparent, openwork sides of Grieg's pianism. This music is in touch with Chopin. This is not the easiest repertoire, but it is essential for mastering romantic pianism. It is important to find a technique for the execution of this complex texture, only through the accuracy of the technique is an adequate artistic embodiment of the image of a butterfly possible. A sense of positionality is very important, and also necessary for the development of finger legato, which is the basis of melodicism in the romantic repertoire, as in Chopin, Debussy, Grieg. One of the difficulties of the play is the change of texture tasks. The performer is required to be able to rebuild and change the technique in order to find an adequate artistic result.

"Birdie"

An example of Grieg's rare gift to create an accurate and subtle drawing with a few strokes. The melody of the piece is woven from short "singing" trills and a "jumping" rhythm. The texture is extremely stingy, transparent; bright ringing sounds of the upper register prevail. The gloomy tones of the middle part only brighten up the clarity of the initial image. "Fluttering" figures of codes create a feeling of lightness and spaciousness. In "Birdie" Grieg uses exquisite means to draw jumping and jumping birds with their chirping motives in the opening bars. This motivational material is built and varied in the course of a piece of music at the same time naturally and logically - so that the whole appears as a masterpiece of musical harmony, while the piece has only 36 measures! This is an example of true greatness in small things. This music reflects the world and nature. The author dictated a motor task. The piece develops a sense of spaciousness in music and allows you to feel the freedom and joy of transferring your hand from one register to another, the joy of movement, based on the image. This piece is useful for a squeezed child.

"Spring"

This is a whole poem with a short but very expressive development. The charm of this generalized poetic image of spring is irresistible. Restrained means of expression are differentiated with great, demanding skill: here every shift of register, every turn of harmony, every expansion or contraction of texture plays its role. The image of spring, given in this play, has become one of the most "Grigov" - not only by virtue of the usual characteristic of many intonation turns, but also as an expression of the highest immediacy in a completely strict form. It is impossible not to notice the innovation of this image in essence. Spring at Grieg not only breathes with fresh joy, not only streams in streams, it also “drips” all the time. This intonational feature of "dripping" is wonderfully found from the very first bars and gives the whole music an integrity of local flavor.

In this play, as in the previous ones, the lyrical mood

combined with the subtlety of the picturesque image. One of the most important

means of expressiveness are here successfully found quiveringly - ringing instrumental texture (rehearsals of accompanying chords in the light and ringing upper register, against which a chanting, freely rhythmic melody unfolds), creating the impression of air, light, spaciousness. Without resorting to complex techniques, Grieg achieves new and fresh, impressive sound effects. This is one of the reasons for the enormous popularity of Grieg's play, which, along with Nocturne (op. 54), became one of the composer's most beloved and widely known piano miniatures. In this piece, it is important to master the "partamento" stroke, as well as the chanting "legato" in the melody. The main difficulty arises where the melody is duplicated in a different register. It is necessary to play this in a pianistically differentiated manner. The third line appears in the piece - chord vibration. A long pedal is important here in order to ensure long sounding durations. Grieg thinks in an orchestral way. Three lines cultivate an attitude to the piano texture as to an orchestral score. The feeling of life that surrounds us, the connection with the musical embodiment - this is amazing for Grieg. It makes you believe in the accuracy of the image, to go to the emotional perception of the music. The play was written in a variation, 3-part form, designed for the 7th grade of a music school.

"Procession of the Dwarfs"

One of the great examples of Grieg's musical fiction. In the contrasting composition of the play, the whimsicality of the fairy-tale world, the underworld of the trolls and the enchanting beauty and clarity of nature are opposed to each other. The play is written in three parts. The extreme parts are distinguished by bright dynamism: in the rapid movement, the fantastic outlines of the "procession" flash. Musical means are extremely stingy: motor rhythm and, against its background, a whimsical and sharp pattern of metric accents, syncope; chromaticities compressed in tonic harmony and scattered, hard-sounding large seventh chords; "Knocking" melody and sharp "whistling" melodic figures; dynamic contrasts (pp-ff) between two sentences of the period and wide leagues of rise and fall of sonority. The image of the middle part is revealed to the listener only after the fantastic visions have disappeared (a long "A", from which a new melody seems to pour out). The light sounding of the theme, simple in structure, is associated with the sound of a folk melody. Its clean, clear structure is reflected in the simplicity and severity of the harmonic make-up (alternation of the major tonic and its parallels).

The mysterious Procession of the Dwarfs continues the tradition of the fantastic scenes of Pera Gynt. However, Grieg puts into this miniature a touch of subtle, sly humor, which is not and cannot be in the description of the gloomy underground kingdom of Ibsen's "Mountain King". Here little trolls - funny freaks - no longer resemble evil "spirits of darkness". A ray of light penetrates the mysterious magic kingdom: a simple folk song of a major trio, murmuring passages like trickles of a stream, speak of the nature surrounding the fairytale heroes - quite real, enchantingly bright and beautiful. The play brings liberation, the courage necessary for an adequate embodiment of the plan. The bold movement of the five-finger formula in different registers contributes to liberation, the acquisition of confidence. In the left hand, you need accuracy in hitting in an octave procession, you need to build it, find a technique so that the left hand is an equal component of the artistic image. It is important to avoid throwing in octave technique. Ellipsis movements are required - an emphasis on the first beat, then a throw down, but not weighed down, not competing with the leading voice delivered by the movement of the strong beat.

"Nocturne"

A lyrical landscape of amazing subtlety. Reflections of nature are written here, it seems, with pictorial clarity, but not a single “pictorial” detail falls out of the general, deeply lyrical tone of the “picture”. Nocturne is written in a dynamic three-part form. The first movement is based on a lyrical melody. Opened melodic phrases directed upward, the intensity of chromaticism in harmony, leading away from the clear gravitation and stability of the tonic, unexpected soft and colorful tonal turns - all this gives the image a romantic fragility, subtlety of nuances. But let us recall the beginning of the melody: it grows out of a short tune of the folk make-up, as if coming from afar. Simple and clear, evoking figurative (landscape) associations, it is not included in the further development of the melody, as if remaining a living, “objective” impression. Just as naturally, continuing the lyrical image, picturesque images arise: the trill of birds, a light breath of the breeze. With the skill of a colorist, Grieg was able to give color, timbre certainty to each theme. The initial play evokes the timbre of the horn in the performance, the lyrical overflow of the melody - the warm sound of bowed instruments, the light iridescent trills - the clear and clear sound of the flute. This is how the features of orchestrality are introduced into the piano sonority. In "Nocturne" one can trace the laconicism of the Grigov style. There is a great expressive significance of the smallest musical detail: register contrasts, a change in size from smooth, fluid to lighter and more mobile, contrasts of intense development of harmony at the beginning, statics in the “trill” theme and colorful harmonic juxtapositions in the middle (Piu mosso, non-chords in tertz and tritone ratio), figurative contrasts and their musical connection. Important in "Nocturne" and proportions in the ratio of parts: the middle part, light, airy, significantly compressed in comparison with the extreme parts. In the reprise, the flow of lyrics is stronger, brighter. The short and strong climax of the theme sounds like an expression of full, enthusiastic feeling. The end of "Nocturne" is interesting: the intensive development of the melody is transferred to the sphere of colorful accords (a sequence on a long chain of chromatically descending seventh chords). The "trill" motive unexpectedly comes up when the rumor is waiting for the appearance of the initial tune. Already devoid of harmonic brilliance, with a sad repetition - "echo" (half a tone lower), it sounds like a distant echo.

In "Nocturne" the feeling of spring or summer nature, sound space is created. A difficult task is posed in mastering polyrhythm. The middle part of the play is the rising of the northern sun. The play is invaluable in pedal terms, it contributes to mastering the art of pedaling. In "Nocturne" there are specific images that have a rich timbre colorful sound.

Bell ringing is the purest exercise in sound writing. In its harmony, this audacious impressionist experiment has no analogue in contemporary Grieg music. The composer's goal is not melodic beauty, but an almost realistic recreation of the impression arising from the ringing of bells, a static, not to say monotonous, feeling. A series of parallel fifths are syncopated against each other in the left and right hands, and the pedal creates overtone-rich masses that literally tremble in the air. This play is a single occurrence in the work of Grieg. Here, new trends in impressionist sound painting were clearly identified.

The composer was especially fond of this work, which, according to him, was inspired by the impression of the morning chime of the Bergen bells. Without destroying the functional basis of harmony, Grieg at the same time highlights its purely sonic, colorful expressiveness. The usual structure of chords is also violated: the piece is built on combinations and layering of quint harmonies that have different functions (layering of a subdominant on a tonic, a dominant on a subdominant).

Colorful overflows of quint harmonies create a picturesque effect of distant ringing, heard in the mountain valley. In the play "Bell Ringing" the concreteness of the image dictates the solution of pedal technical problems. This is ear education, associative imagery.

Conclusion

The works of Grieg, due to their rich and multifaceted imagery,

pictorial illustrativeness, colorfulness of color create an optimal condition for the formation of artistic and imaginative thinking of students-musicians, contribute to the strengthening of associative connections in their minds between music and other types of art, initiate the development of the entire complex of general and special musical abilities.

Grieg's piano compositions naturally introduce the student to the realm

pianistic culture of the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries; work on these compositions significantly expands the arsenal of expressive-technical (performing) techniques and means necessary for the professional activity of musicians.

Piano Works: "Poetic Pictures" (1863). Ballad (1876). "Lyric Pieces" (10 notebooks). Norwegian Dances and Songs.

Bibliography

1.Asafiev, B.V. Grig - L .: Music: Leningrad branch, 1986.

2. Alekseev AD Methods of teaching to play the piano. - M .: 1961.

3. Benestad F., Scheelderup-Ebbe D. Edward Grieg - a man and an artist; - M .:

Rainbow, 1986.

4. Demenko N. V. Music by E. Grieg in the educational process on

music faculties of pedagogical educational institutions: At

material of lessons in music-performing classes. - M., 2002.

5. Druskin M. S. Grieg and the Norwegian culture. M., "Music", 1964.

6. Ibsen G. Selected Works. Moscow: Art, 1956.

7. Ilyin IA The Way of Spiritual Renewal. - M., "Republic", 1993.

8. Levasheva O. E. Edvard Grieg. Essay on life and work. M., "Music",

9. Steen-Nockleberg, E. On Stage with Grieg: Interpretation of Piano

works of the composer. - M .: "Verger-AV", 1999.

Edvard Grieg is a Norwegian composer, pianist, conductor and critic who wrote folk music.

The creative heritage of Edvard Grieg includes more than 600 songs and romances, 20 pieces, symphonies, sonatas and suites for piano, violin, cello.

Grieg in his works managed to convey the mystery of Swedish and Norwegian fairy tales, where a gnome hides behind every stone, a troll can crawl out of any hole. The feeling of a fairy tale, labyrinths can be caught in his music.

The most famous and recognizable works of Grieg can be called "Morning" and "In the Cave of the Mountain King" from the suite Peer Gynt. We invite you to listen to these works.

Listen to "Morning" from the suite Peer Gynt

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Listen to "In the Cave of the Mountain King" from the Peer Gynt Suite

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Grieg's biography

Full name: Edward Hagerup Grieg. Lived: 1843 - 1907 Height: 152 cm.

Homeland: the city of Bergen in Norway. The rainiest city in Europe. Today it is the 2nd largest city in Norway.

Bergen - the birthplace of Grieg

Grieg's father - Alexander Grieg was from Scotland. In Bergen, he served as British vice-consul. Mother - Gesina Hagerup was a pianist - the best in Bergen. She graduated from the conservatory in Hamburg, despite the fact that only young men were admitted to this educational institution. Grieg had two brothers and 3 sisters who studied music from childhood.

Once walking near Bergen in the mountains, little Edward stopped by a pine tree peeping out of the gorge, looked at it for a long time. Then he asked his father: "Where do the trolls live?" And although his father told him that trolls live only in fairy tales, Edward did not believe him. He was firmly convinced that trolls lived among rocks, in forests, in the roots of old pines. As a child, Grieg was a dreamer and loved to tell amazing stories to his loved ones. Edward considered his mother a fairy, because only a fairy can play the piano like that.

Reading the diaries of little Grieg, you can emphasize that phenomenal ideas are born in childhood. Grieg, approaching the piano, immediately noticed that two adjacent notes sound bad. But if after one - it turns out beautifully. He wrote about this in his diary. Once, when he grew up, he pressed 4 notes. And a little later, when the hand grew up - 5 notes through one. And the result is a nonchord or dimachord! And then in his diary he wrote that he had become a composer!

At the age of 6, his mother began to teach Grieg to play the piano. Playing scales and arpeggios - Grieg imagined a platoon of soldiers marching.
All his childhood he lived in a fantasy world. He made boring exercises interesting, gray weather, bright, long way to school - changing magic pictures. When Grieg grew up, he was allowed to attend musical evenings. On one of these evenings, he listened to the play of Mozart.

When Grieg was 8 years old, Ole Bull, a violin virtuoso who gained recognition throughout Europe, visited his house as a guest.
At the age of 10, Grieg began to attend school, but his studies were not interesting for him.

At the age of 12, Grieg wrote his first essay: "Visiting the Kobolds."
Edward took the notebook with his first essay to the school. The teacher, who disliked the boy for his inattention to his studies, ridiculed these notes. Grieg did not bring his compositions to school anymore, but he did not stop composing.

The Grieg family moves to the Landos suburb of Bergen. There, along with his older brother, Edward often went to the neighboring farm - to listen to the songs of the peasants and their playing on folk felé violins.

The Norwegian motif - the national pattern of Norway - is dance, haligen, melodies - with all this Grieg grew up. And he "hid" these melodies in his works.

When Edward was 15 years old, Ole Bull heard his play and uttered the prophetic words: "This boy will glorify Norway." It was Bull who advised Grieg to go to Germany to study at the Leipzig Conservatory.

In 1958, Edward became a student at the Conservatory.
During his studies, Grieg fell ill with pleurisy and lost one lung. For this reason, he stopped growing and remained at a height of 152 cm, while the average height of men in Norway was more than 180 cm.

One way or another, Grieg graduated from the conservatory with excellent grades and admirable recommendations.

Over the years of his studies, Edward attended many concerts, enjoying the works of great musicians - Wagner, Mozart, Beethoven.
Grieg himself had an interesting ritual. During each of his performances, a clay frog lay in the pocket of Grieg's jacket. Before the start of each concert, he always took it out and stroked the back. The talisman worked: every time there was an unimaginable success at concerts.

In the 1860s, Grieg wrote the first pieces for piano - plays and sonatas.
In 1863 he trained in Copenhagen with the Danish composer N. Gade.

During the same period of his life in Copenhagen, Grieg met and became friends with Hans Christian Andersen. The author of all well-known fairy tales: The Ugly Duckling, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, Ole Lukkoye, Shepherdess and Chimney Sweep, The Princess and the Pea, The Little Mermaid, The Swineherd, The Snow Queen, etc. The composer wrote music for several of his poems.

Nina Hagerup

All in the same Copenhagen, Edvard Grieg meets the woman of his life - Nina Hagerup. The young successful singer reciprocated Grieg's passionate recognition. On the way to their boundless happiness there was only one obstacle - family ties. Nina was Edward's maternal cousin. Their union caused a storm of indignation among relatives, and for all subsequent years they became outcasts in their own families.

In 1864, Edward proposed to Nina Hagerup on Christmas evening, in the company of young cultural figures, presenting her with a collection of his love sonnets entitled "Melodies of the Heart", which were written by his friend Hans Christian Andersen.

In 1865, together with another composer from Norway, Nurdrok Grieg, he founded the Euterpe Society, which was to popularize the works of young composers.

In 1867 he married Nina Hagerup. Due to the disapproval of relatives, the couple had to move to Oslo, the capital of Norway.

From 1867 to 1874 Grieg worked as a conductor at the Philharmonic Society in Oslo.

In 1868 Liszt (the idol of all Europe) gets acquainted with the work of Grieg. He is amazed. By sending him a letter of support, in 1870 they met in person.

Grieg, in turn, writes to Liszt that he has composed a concerto and wants to perform it for Liszt in Weimor (a city in Germany).

Leaf is waiting for him - waiting for the tall Norwegian. Instead, he sees a "dwarf" one and a half meters tall. However, when Liszt heard Grieg's piano concerto, the truly huge Liszt with huge hands exclaimed to the little man Grieg: "Giant!"

In 1871, Grieg founded a musical society that promoted symphonic music.
In 1874, for services to Norway, the government of the country issued Grieg a lifetime scholarship.

In 1880 he returned to his native Bergen and became the head of the musical society Harmony. During the 1880s he wrote works, mainly intended for playing the piano in 4 hands.

In 1888 he met Tchaikovsky, acquaintance develops into friendship.

Later, Tchaikovsky said about Grieg: "... a man of very small stature and frail build, with shoulders of uneven height, beaded curls on his head, but with enchanting blue eyes of an innocent adorable child ..." Tchaikovsky even dedicated his Hamlet overture to Edward.

In 1889 he received membership in the French Academy of Fine Arts, in 1872 - in the Royal Swedish Academy, and in 1883 - at Leiden University.
In 1893 he received his Ph.D. in music from the University of Cambridge. At the same time, he combines his studies with a tour of Europe with his wife Nina.

Between touring major European cities, he returned to Norway and retired to his estate called "Troll Hill."

Taking advantage of his fame, in 1898 he organized a music festival of Norwegian music in his native Bergen, which brought together the best musicians and musical figures of the world, and thus finally included Norway in the active musical life of Europe. This festival is still being held. Grieg performs a lot, organizes concerts and
festivals, where he acts as a conductor, pianist, educator. Often they perform together with his wife, the gifted chamber singer Nina Hagerup, who inspired him to write a large number
romances (naturally, on the texts of Scandinavian poets).
From 1891 to 1901, Grieg worked without rest - he wrote plays and a collection of songs, in 1903 he released an adaptation of folk dances for piano performance.

Continuing to tour with his wife in Norway, Denmark and Germany, he caught a cold, and on September 4, 1907, died of pleurisy.

Grieg's works

Suite Peer Gynt

One of the most significant works of Grieg is the suite "Peer Gynt", based on the drama of the Norwegian writer Heinrich Ibsen. Once a parcel came to Grieg from the playwright Heinrich Ibsen. It was a new piece, for which he asked Grieg to compose music.
Peer Gynt is the name of a guy who grew up in a small village. Here is his home, his mother and the girl who loves him - Salveig. But his homeland became not sweet for him - and he went in search of happiness to distant countries. After many years, not finding his own happiness, he returned to his homeland.

After reading the play, Grieg sent a reply with gratitude for the offer and his consent.

After the premiere of the play in 1876, the audience fell in love with Grieg's music so much that he composed two suites from it for concert performance. Of the 23 numbers of music for the performance, 8 pieces were included in the suites. Both the music for the play and the suites were written for a symphony orchestra. Then the composer transcribed both suites for piano.

The first suite consists of four parts:

• "Morning",
• "Death to Oze"
• Anitra's dance
• "In the cave of the mountain king."

The second suite also consists of four parts:

• Ingrid's Complaint
• Arabic dance,
• "The Return of Per Gynt",
• Solveig's song.

In fact, Grieg became the first Norwegian composer to achieve worldwide fame, and he also pushed Scandinavian folk motifs to a new level. Let's remember Solveig of Peer Gynt. There we hear a Norwegian motive, but in the theme of dancing Anitra there is still the same motive, but already hidden. There we also hear our favorite 5-note chord - the opening of childhood. In the cave of the mountain king - again this folk Norwegian motive, but already hidden - in the opposite direction.

Grieg gave a big concert in Oslo, the program of which consisted exclusively of the composer's works. But at the last minute, Grieg unexpectedly replaced the very last number of the program with a piece by Beethoven. The next day, a very venomous criticism of a famous Norwegian critic, who did not like Grieg's music, appeared in the largest metropolitan newspaper. The critic was especially strict about the last number of the concert, noting that this "composition is simply ridiculous and completely unacceptable." Grieg phoned this critic and said:

You are worried about the spirit of Beethoven. I must inform you that the last piece performed in Grieg's concert was composed by me! ”From such an embarrassment with the unfortunate disgraced critic, a heart attack occurred.

Grieg and his friend the conductor Franz Beyer often went fishing in the town of Nurdo Svannet. Once on a fishing trip, Grieg suddenly had a musical phrase. He took a piece of paper from his bag, wrote it down and calmly put the paper next to him. A sudden gust of wind blew the leaf into the water. Grieg did not notice that the paper was gone, and Beyer quietly fished it out of the water. He read the recorded melody and, hiding the paper, began to hum it. Grieg turned around with lightning speed and asked:

What is it? .. Beyer replied completely unperturbed:

Just an idea that just came to my mind.

- "Well, but everyone says that miracles do not happen! - Grieg said in great amazement. -

Imagine, after all, a few minutes ago, I also came up with exactly the same idea!

In the story "Basket with Fir Cones" Konstantin Paustovsky creates a portrait of Grieg with several bright strokes. The writer hardly speaks about the composer's appearance. But by the way the hero of the novel listens to the voice of the forest, how he looks at the life of the earth with kind, laughing eyes, we recognize him as a great Norwegian composer. We believe that Grieg could only be like this: an infinitely sensitive and talented person for good.

Name: Edvard Grieg

Age: 64 years old

Height: 152

Activity: composer, conductor, pianist, writer

Family status: was married

Edvard Grieg: biography

The work of the Norwegian composer and conductor Edward Hagerup Grieg is 600 works written during the Romantic period, which the musician was inspired by folklore. Grieg's twenty plays appeared after his death, and many songs, romances and vocal compositions are used as soundtracks for popular feature films and cartoons today.

We hear the composition "In the Cave of the Mountain King" in the TV series "" and "Interns". The song "Solveig's Song" is in the repertoire, and the British-American group Rainbow took an excerpt from Edvard Grieg's musical "Peer Gynt" as a basis for their hard rock composition.

Childhood and youth

Edward was born in the summer of 1843 in Bergen. He grew up in an educated family where music was an important part of everyday life. In the veins of his paternal great-grandfather, the merchant Alexander Grieg, Scottish blood flowed. Grieg became British vice-consul in Bergen. Grandfather inherited the position and was known as a professional musician - he played in the city orchestra. He married the daughter of the chief conductor.

The vice-consular post "migrated" to the third generation of the Scottish merchant - to the composer's parent Alexander Grieg, who married, like his father, a woman with excellent ear for music.

Edward's mom, Gesina Hagerup, is a professional pianist. At home, she played for children - two sons and three daughters - works by and. Edvard Grieg played the first chords on the piano at the age of 4. At 5 he was already composing plays.

At 12, the teenager wrote the first piano melody, and 3 years later, at the insistence of the famous Norwegian violinist Ole Bull, he became a student at the Leipzig Conservatory. The talented young man turned out to be so demanding of teachers that he replaced the mentor, who seemed to him an unprofessional performer.

In Leipzig, Edvard Grieg visited the famous concert hall "Gewandhaus", where he listened to works performed by world-famous musicians, and. The last composer became an indisputable authority for Edward and influenced Grieg's early work.

Music

During his student years, the creative biography of Edvard Grieg develops: the young composer composed 4 pieces for piano and the same number of romances. The influence of Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn and others is noticeable in them.

In 1862, the musician left the walls of the conservatory, receiving a diploma with honors. Professors and mentors predicted a brilliant future in art for the young man, calling him "an outstanding pianist with an expressive manner of performance." In the same year, Grieg gave his first concert in Sweden, but did not stay in the country - he went to his native Bergen. At home, Edward was bored: the level of the city's musical culture seemed to him low.

Edvard Grieg settled in the epicenter of the trendsetter in music - Copenhagen. Here, in Scandinavia, in the 1860s, the composer composed 6 piano pieces, combining them into Poetic Pictures. Critics noted the national flavor in the Norwegian's works.

In 1864, Edvard Grieg, together with Danish musicians, became the founder of the Euterpe Music Society, which introduced music lovers to the work of Scandinavian composers. Grieg worked tirelessly: he composed Humoresques for piano performance, the Autumn overture and the First Violin Sonata.

Together with his young wife, the musician moved to Oslo, where he was soon invited to take the place of the conductor of the Philharmonic. These are the years of the creative heyday of the Norwegian composer: Edvard Grieg presented the audience with the first notebook of "Lyric Pieces", the Second Violin Sonata and the cycle "25 Norwegian Folk Songs and Dances". After rapprochement with the Norwegian writer and Nobel Prize winner Björnstierne Björnson, Grieg wrote the play Sigurd the Crusader in 1872.

In 1870, Edvard Grieg met with who, after listening to the First Violin Sonata of the Norwegian composer, was delighted with his talent. The young composer called the support of the maestro invaluable.

In the mid-1870s, the Norwegian government supported the talented fellow countryman by granting him a life scholarship from the state. During these years, Grieg met the poet, whose poetry he admired since childhood, and wrote the music for his drama Peer Gynt (the most famous overture from the composer's legacy). After his premiere in Oslo in 1876, the musician turned from a national star to a world star.

Edvard Grieg returned to Bergen as a famous and wealthy man. He settled in the Villa Trollhaugen, where he worked until 1907. The poetry of nature and the folklore of his native land inspired him to many masterpieces, such as Procession of the Dwarfs, Kobold, Solveig's Song and dozens of suites.

The daughter of the forester - 18-year-old Dagny Pedersen - Edvard Grieg presented the melody "Morning". In the twentieth century, the American company "Warner Bros." has repeatedly used the melody in the dubbing of animated films.

In letters to friends, the musician described in detail the majestic nature of Norway, and his songs from the period of his life in "Trollhaugen" are hymns to the wooded mountains and swift rivers of the region.

Edvard Grieg does not close at the villa: the elderly musician regularly travels to Europe, where he gives concerts and gathers halls. Fans see him as a pianist and conductor, he accompanies his wife, publishes dozens of collections of songs and romances. But all the touring trips end with a return to Trollhaugen, a favorite place on earth.

In early 1888, Edvard Grieg met in Leipzig with. The acquaintance grew into strong friendship and cooperation. Pyotr Ilyich dedicated the Hamlet overture to his Norwegian colleague and described Grieg with admiration in his memoirs. In the early 1890s, both musicians were awarded the titles of doctors of Cambridge. Previously, Edvard Grieg received membership of the Academy of Fine Arts of France, the Royal Academy of Sweden and the University of Leiden.

In 1905, Grieg's autobiographical story titled "My First Success" appeared in print. Readers appreciated another genius talent - literary. In a light syllable, with humor, Edvard Grieg described the path of life and the ascent to the creative Olympus.

The composer worked until the last days of his life. In 1907, the musician went on tour through the cities of Norway, Denmark and Germany, which turned out to be farewell.

Personal life

After graduating from the conservatory, the young musician went to Copenhagen. In the capital of Denmark, Edvard Grieg fell in love with his cousin, his mother's niece, Nina Hagerup. The last time he saw her as an 8-year-old girl, and in Copenhagen, a young beauty and a singer with a melodic and strong voice appeared in front of him.

Relatives and friends were shocked by the novel between Edward and Nina, but on the Christmas holidays in 1864, Grieg did as he saw fit: he offered his beloved his hand and heart. Neither word of mouth nor close relationship became an obstacle to the scandalous marriage: Grieg and Hagerup got married in the summer of 1867. Unable to withstand the moral pressure and gossip, the newlyweds left for Oslo. Two years later, they had a daughter, Alexandra.

It seems that both people and the sky were up in arms against this marriage: a year later, Alexandra died of meningitis. The death of a child overshadowed the marriage. Nina plunged into depression and closed herself off. The spouses were connected only by concert activities and creative plans, but the former closeness did not become. The Griegs no longer had children.

In 1883, Nina left Edward Grieg, and the composer lived alone for three months. The aggravated disease - pleurisy, which threatens to develop into tuberculosis - reconciled the spouses. Hagerup returned to look after her husband.

To improve Grieg's shaky health, the couple moved to the highlands and built the Trollhaugen villa. In the rural wilderness, communicating with fishermen and lumberjacks, walking in the mountains, the composer found peace.

Death

In the spring of 1907, Edvard Grieg went on tour in Danish and German cities. In the fall, I went to a music festival in Britain with Nina. The couple stayed at the Bergen port hotel, waiting for the ship to the English capital. At the hotel, the composer felt unwell, he was urgently hospitalized.

The musician died on September 4. The death of Edward Grieg plunged Norway into national mourning. According to Grieg's will, his ashes found their last refuge next to the villa, in a rocky niche. Later, Nina Hagerup was buried here.

Trollhaugen, where Edvard Grieg lived the last 14 years of his life, is open to tourists and fans of the Norwegian composer's talent. The villa has preserved the interior, violin, musician's things. On the wall, as in the life of the maestro, hangs a hat. Next to the estate there is a working house, where Grieg liked to retire to work, and his statue in full growth.

Discography (works)

• 1865 - Piano Sonata in E minor, op. 7
• 1865 - Sonata No. 1 for violin and piano in F major, op. eight
• 1866 - "Autumn" for piano four hands
• 1866-1901 - "Lyric Pieces", 10 collections
• 1867 - Sonata No. 2 for violin and piano in G major, op. 13
• 1868 - Concerto for piano and orchestra, op. 16
• 1875 - "Sigurd the Crusader", op. 22
• 1875 - "Peer Gynt", op. 23
• 1877-78 - String Quartet in G minor, op. 27
• 1881 - "Norwegian Dances" for piano four hands
• 1882 - Sonata for cello and piano, op. 36
• 1886-87 - Sonata No. 3 for violin and piano in C minor, op. 45
• 1898 - Symphonic dances, op. 64