Text 2. Henrik ibsen

Henrik Johan Ibsen, Norway’s most famous playwright, was born in Skien in 1828. By the age of 15, difficult family circumstances had forced him to Grimstad where he worked as a pharmacist’s apprentice. In his spare time, Ibsen, who failed both Greek and mathematics and thereafter abandoned plans to become a doctor, wrote poetry which caught the eye of the violinist Ole Bull who steered the impressionable young Ibsen toward the theatre.

Ibsen worked for six years with the theatre in Bergen, followed by five years in Christiania (Oslo), where he acquired a sharp eye for theatrical technique. His masterpiece during this period, The Pretenders (1863), takes place in 13th century Norway, with King Håkon Håkonsson expressing anachronistic dreams of national unity.

From 1864, Ibsen lived and studied in Rome, Dresden and Munich, decrying the small-mindedness of Norwegian society of the day; so disenchanted was he by his homeland that he wouldn’t return home until 1891, at the age of 63. In his later works, notably Brand (1866), Emperor and Galilean (1873), Pillars of Society (1877), the highly provocative Ghosts (1881), An Enemy of the People (1882), The Wild Duck (1884) and Hedda Gabler (1890), he achieved a more realistic dialogue and came to be known as the father of modern Norwegian drama.

Above all others, however, the enormously popular Peer Gynt (1867) was Ibsen’s international breakthrough, especially when set to the music of Edvard Grieg. In this enduring epic, an ageing hero returns to his Norwegian roots after wandering around the world and is forced to face his own soul. As he looks back on a wasted life of travel and his fruitless search for truth, his essence peels away like the skin of an onion, ultimately revealing no core to his personality.

In the similarly acclaimed The Doll’s House (1879), Ibsen successfully explored the doctrine of critical realism and the experiences of the individual in the face of the majority. As his protagonist Nora puts it: ‘I will have to find out who is right, society or myself. As a result, Nora has become a symbol for women who sacrifice family life to struggle for equality and liberation.

In his last drama, the semi-autobiographical When We Dead Awaken, Ibsen describes the life of the estranged artist, sculptor Professor Rubek, who returns to Norway in his later years but finds no happiness, having forsaken his only love and his youth to misplaced idealism.

Ibsen became a partial invalid after suffering a heart attack in 1901 and died five years later.

Text 3. Edvard grieg

Norway’s best known and most universally loved composer, Edvard Grieg, has always been inextricably tied to Bergen. He composed his first symphony in Copenhagen, but so disappointed was he with the result that he scrawled across the score that it must never be performed! Thankfully, his wishes were ignored, even if he steadfastly refused to acknowledge it as his own creation.

Grieg’s early style strongly reflected his German romantic training, but he always understood the expectation that he would compose national music for his homeland, Norway. After returning to Christiania (Oslo) in 1866, Grieg became increasingly influenced by Norway’s folk music and melodies. In 1868, he completed his first great, signature work, Piano Concerto in A minor, which has since come to represent Norway as no other work before or since.

Two years after the concerto, Grieg, encouraged by the resulting acclaim and by support from luminaries such as Ole Bull and Franz Liszt, collaborated with Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, setting the latter’s poetry and writing to music. The results - Before a Southern Convent, Bergliot and Sigurd Jorsalfar - established Grieg as the musical voice of Norway. This was followed by a project with Henrik Ibsen , setting to music Ibsen’s wonderful novel Peer Gynt. The score found international acclaim and became his-and Norway’s - best-remembered classical work.

In 1874, a government grant allowed Grieg to return to Bergen and set his creative juices flowing; the result was his Ballad in G minor, The Mountain Thrall, the Norwegian Dances for Piano and the Holberg Suite. Between 1880 and 1882, he conducted an orchestra in Bergen, but resigned in order to return to his preferred work of composing. In 1885, he and his wife Nina moved into the coastal home Troldhaugen, from which he set off on numerous concert tours of Europe. At Troldhaugen he created the Sonata for Violin and Piano in С minor, the Haugtussa Songs, the Norwegian Peasant Dances and Tunes, and the Four Psalms, his last major work, based on a series of Norwegian religious melodies.

It was only after his death in Bergen on 4 September 1907, that his music garnered Europe-wide acclaim. However, perhaps the greatest praise for this most Norwegian of composers came from his first biographer, Aimer Grøvald, who noted that it was impossible to listen to Grieg without sensing a light, fresh breeze from the blue waters, a glimpse of grand glaciers and a recollection of the mountains of Western Norway’s fjords.