“This final admonition was of tremendous importance to me; there was something in it like a sanctification.  When disappointment and bitterness are in store for me, I shall recall his words, and the remembrance of that hour will have a wonderful power to uphold me in days of adversity.”

When Edward Grieg was a little over thirty, in the year 1874, the Norwegian Government honored him with an annuity of sixteen hundred crowns a year, for life.  Another good fortune was a request from the distinguished poet, Henrik Ibsen, to produce music for his drama of “Peer Gynt.”

With the help of the annuity Grieg was able to give up teaching and conducting and devote himself to composition.  He left Christiania, where he and Mme. Grieg had resided for eight years, and came back for a time to Bergen.  Here, in January 1874, Ibsen offered him the proposition of writing music for his work, for which he was arranging a stage production.

Grieg was delighted with the opportunity, for such a task was very congenial.  He completed the score in the autumn of 1875.  The first performance was given on February 24, 1876, at Christiania.  Grieg himself was not present, as he was then in Bergen.  The play proved a real success and was given thirty-six times that season, for which success the accompanying original and charming music was largely responsible.

Norway is a most picturesque country, and no one could be more passionately fond of her mountains, fjords, valleys and waterfalls than Edward Grieg.  For several years he now chose to live at Lofthus, a tiny village, situated on a branch of the Hardanger Fjord.  It is said no spot could have been more enchanting.  The little study, consisting of one room, where the composer could work in perfect quiet, was perched among the trees above the fjord, with a dashing waterfall near by.  No wonder Grieg could write of the “Butterfly,” the “Little Bird,” and “To the Spring,” in such poetical, vivid harmonies.  He had only to look from his window and see the marvels of nature about him.

A few years later he built a beautiful villa at Troldhaugen, not far from Bergen, where he spent the rest of his life.  Some American friends who visited them in 1901, speak of the ideal existence of the artist pair.  Grieg himself is described as very small and frail looking, with a face as individual, as unique and attractive as his music—­the face of a thinker, a genius.  His eyes were keen and blue; his hair, almost white, was brushed backward like Liszt’s.  His hands were thin and small; they were wonderful hands and his touch on the piano had the luscious quality of Paderewski’s.  Mme. Grieg received them with a fascinating smile and won all hearts by her appearance and charm of manner.  She was short and plump, with short wavy gray hair and dark blue eyes.  Her sister, who resembled her strongly, made up the rest of the family.  Grieg called her his “second wife” and they seemed a most united family.