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The composer who through his music had endeared himself to the whole world, was granted a touching funeral, at which only his own music was heard, including his Funeral March, which he had composed for his friend Nordraak. The burial place is as romantic as his music. Near his home there is a steep cliff, about fifty feet high, projecting into the fjord.
There were two groups of songs, by Nordraak and Kjerulf respectively. The concert was a success with press and public and the young composer's position seemed assured. He secured the appointment of Conductor of the Philharmonic Society, and was quite the vogue as a teacher. He married Nina Hargerup the following June, 1867, and they resided in Christiania for the next eight years.
Nordraak visited Grieg in his home, where they discussed music and patriotism to their hearts' content. Nordraak was intensely patriotic, and wished to see the establishment of Norse music. Grieg, who had been more or less influenced by German ideas, since Leipsic days, now cast off the fetters and placed himself on the side of Norwegian music.
The first meeting took place at a monastery near the Roman Forum, where Liszt made his home when in town. "I took with me my last violin Sonata, the Funeral March on the death of Nordraak and a volume of songs. I need not have been anxious, for Liszt was kindness itself. He came smiling towards me and said in the most genial manner: "'We have had some little correspondence, haven't we?
His brilliant career glorified musical Norway; gave it confidence to assert itself, and serve as the inspiration of a long list of creative tone artists Kjerulf, Nordraak, Grieg, Svendsen, Winter-Hjelm, Sindling, and Behrens to write out and arrange for voice and modern instruments the music that had so long been preserved in the memories of the people.
Bjoernson has had the rare fortune of having his lyrics set to music by three composers Nordraak, Kjerulf, and Grieg as intensely national in spirit as himself, and no festal occasion among Norwegians is celebrated without singing the national hymn, "Yes, We Love This Land of Ours," or the noble choral setting of "Olaf Trygvason."
To prove this he composed the Humoresken, Op. 6, and dedicated them to Nordraak. From now on he felt free to do as he pleased in music to be himself. In 1864 Grieg became engaged to his cousin, Nina Hargerup, a slender girl of nineteen, who had a lovely voice and for whom he wrote many of his finest songs.
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.
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. Richard Nordraak was a young Norwegian composer of great talent, who, in his brief career, created a few excellent works. The two musicians met in the winter of 1864 and were attracted to each other at once.
Grieg could not endure "amateurish mediocrity," and made war upon it, thus drawing jealous attacks upon himself. His great friend and ally, Nordraak, passed away in 1868, and the next year his baby daughter, aged thirteen months, the only child he ever had, left them. In spite of these discouragements, some of his finest compositions came into being about this period of his life.
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