Among his fellow students at the Conservatory were at least a half dozen who later made names for themselves.  They were:  Arthur Sullivan, Walter Bache, Franklin Taylor, Edward Dannreuther and J.F.  Barnett.  All these were making rapid progress in spite of dry methods.  So Edward Grieg began to realize that if he would also accomplish anything, he must buckle down to work.  He now began to study with frantic ardor, with scarcely time left for eating and sleeping.  The result of this was a complete breakdown in the spring of 1860, with several ailments, incipient lung trouble being the most serious.  Indeed it was serious enough to deprive Grieg of one lung, leaving him for the remainder of his life somewhat delicate.

When his mother learned of his illness, she hurried to Leipsic and took him back to Bergen, where he slowly regained his health.  His parents now begged him to remain at home, but he wished to return to Leipsic.  He did so, throwing himself into his studies with great zeal.  In the spring of 1862, after a course of four years, he passed his examinations with credit.  On this occasion he played some of his compositions—­the four which have been printed as Op. 1—­and achieved success, both as composer and pianist.

After a summer spent quietly with his parents at Landaas, he began to prepare for coming musical activities.  The next season he gave his first concert in Bergen, at which the piano pieces of Op. 1, Four Songs for Alto, and a String Quartet were played.  With the proceeds of this concert he bought orchestral and chamber music, and began to study score, which he had not previously learned to do.  In the spring of 1863—­he was hardly twenty then—­he left home and took up his residence in Copenhagen, a much larger city, offering greater opportunities for an ambitious young musician.  It was also the home of Niels W. Gade, the foremost Scandinavian composer.

Of course Grieg was eager to meet Gade, and an opportunity soon occurred.  Gade expressed a willingness to look at some of his compositions, and asked if he had anything to show him.  Edward modestly answered in the negative.  “Go home and write a symphony,” was the retort.  This the young composer started obediently to do, but the work was never finished in this form.  It became later Two Symphonic Pieces for Piano, Op. 14.

Two sources of inspiration for Grieg were Ole Bull and Richard Nordraak.  We remember that Ole Bull was the means of influencing his parents to send Edward to Leipsic.  That was in 1858.  Six years later, when Ole Bull was staying at his country home, near Bergen, where he always tried to pass the summers, the two formed a more intimate friendship.  They played frequently together, sonatas by Mozart and others, or trios, in which Edward’s brother John played the ’cello parts.  Or they wandered together to their favorite haunts among mountains, fjords or flower clad valleys.  They both worshiped nature in all her aspects and moods, and each, the one on his instrument, the other in his music, endeavored to reproduce these endless influences.