Edvard Hagerup Grieg (1843-1907) is Norway's greatest composer. Although his style was shaped by the Norwegian folk spirit, it assimilated German romanticism and even anticipated features of French impressionism.

Edvard Grieg was born in Bergen on June 15, 1843. His father was a merchant; his mother, a talented musician, gave Grieg his first music lessons. At 15 he was sent to the Leipzig Conservatory, where he studied under the leading German academicians of the day. An attack of pleurisy in 1860 destroyed one of his lungs and undermined his studies, and in 1862 he quit Leipzig for good. Though Grieg looked back with loathing upon this phase of his life, his music often showed the influence of the Leipzig tradition of German romanticism.

In 1863 Grieg went to Copenhagen to seek advice from Niels Gade, the leading Scandinavian composer. Gade commanded the young Norwegian to compose a symphony--an uncongenial task over which Grieg toiled...