Troldhaugen is the former home of Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg and his wife Nina Grieg. Troldhaugen is located in Bergen, Norway and consists of the Edvard Grieg Museum, Grieg's villa, the hut where he composed music, and his and his wife's gravesite.
The building was designed by Grieg's cousin, the architect Schak Bull. The name comes from trold meaning troll and haug from the Old Norse word haugr meaning hill or knoll. Grieg is reputed to have said that the children called the nearby small valley "The Valley of Trolls" and thus gave the name for his building as well. Edvard Grieg himself called the building "my best composition hitherto".
Edvard and Nina Grieg finished building Troldhaugen in 1885. Edvard and Nina Grieg lived in Troldhaugen when he was home in Norway, mostly in the summer. Troldhaugen was the home of Edvard Grieg from April 1885 to his death. After the death of her husband in 1907, Nina Grieg moved to Denmark, where she spent the remainder of her life. Grieg's and his wife's ashes rest inside a mountain tomb near the house. [1]
Troldhaugen is a typical 19th-century residence with a panoramic tower and a large veranda. Grieg's small composer's hut overlooks Nordås Lake. Grieg immortalized the name of his home in one of his piano pieces, Wedding Day at Troldhaugen , Opus 65, No. 6.
Troldhaugen and its surroundings are now operated as the Edvard Grieg Museum Troldhaugen, which is dedicated to the memory of Edvard Grieg. In 1995, a museum building was added, with a permanent exhibition of Edvard Grieg's life and music, as well as a shop and restaurant. In the villa's living room stands Grieg's own Steinway grand piano, which he was given as a silver wedding anniversary present in 1892. Today the instrument is used for private concerts, special occasions, and intimate concerts held in connection with Bergen International Festival. [2] In addition, the noted Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes has recorded an album of selections from Grieg's ten volumes of Lyric Pieces .
Troldsalen, a concert hall, offers concert series in the summer and autumn months, as well as many other concerts and events. Troldsalen, which was completed in 1985, is an elegant and beautiful concert hall, with excellent acoustics. The floor-to-ceiling windows behind the stage provide the audience with a lovely view of the composer's hut and Lake Nordås. In 2024 an episode of the Evolving Enterprises podcast [3] featured the Musical Curator Johannes Holtmon and considered what we can learn in the business world from Edvard Grieg's amazing musical legacy.
Edvard Hagerup Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is widely considered one of the leading Romantic era composers, and his music is part of the standard classical repertoire worldwide. His use of Norwegian folk music in his own compositions brought the music of Norway to fame, as well as helping to develop a national identity, much as Jean Sibelius did in Finland and Bedřich Smetana in Bohemia.
Johan Halvorsen was a Norwegian composer, conductor and violinist.
Ole Bornemann Bull was a Norwegian virtuoso violinist and composer. According to Robert Schumann, he was on a level with Niccolò Paganini for the speed and clarity of his playing.
Song of Norway is an operetta written in 1944 by Robert Wright and George Forrest, adapted from the music of Edvard Grieg and the book by Milton Lazarus and Homer Curran. A very loose film adaptation with major changes to both the book and music was released in 1970.
Nina Grieg, née Hagerup was a Danish–Norwegian lyric soprano.
Lyric Pieces is a collection of 66 short pieces for solo piano written by Edvard Grieg. They were published in 10 volumes, from 1867 to 1901. The collection includes several of his best known pieces, such as Wedding Day at Troldhaugen, To Spring, March of the Trolls (Trolltog), and Butterfly (Sommerfugl).
Fana is a borough of the city of Bergen in Vestland county, Norway. The borough makes up the southeastern part of the municipality of Bergen. The borough was once part of the historic municipality of Fana which was incorporated into Bergen in 1972. The old municipality was much larger than the present-day borough of Fana. It also included all of the present-day boroughs of Ytrebygda and Fyllingsdalen as well as the southern part of the present-day boroughs of Årstad. As of 1 January 2012, Fana had a population of 39,216.
The Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra is a Norwegian orchestra based in Bergen. Its principal concert venue is the Grieg Hall.
Arve Tellefsen is a Norwegian violinist who has worked with conductors such as Mariss Jansons, Arvid Jansons, Herbert Blomstedt, Gary Bertini, Evgeny Svetlanov, Bryden Thomson, Neeme Järvi, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Paavo Berglund, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Walter Weller and Zubin Mehta. In the UK, he has appeared with the Royal Philharmonic, the London Philharmonic, The Hallé, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, BBC Welsh Orchestra, the Liverpool Philharmonic and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg wrote three violin sonatas. They are all examples of his musical nationalism, since they all contain references or similarities to Norwegian folk song. Grieg wrote the sonatas between 1865 and 1887.
The Grieg Academy is a disputed historical term used to refer to the higher education music programs in Bergen, Norway, as well as various collaborations across music institutions in Bergen. However, since 2016, due to mergers between several Norwegian institutions, the structure of Grieg Academy has changed and its remaining components are expected to be a doctoral research school and various research groups. Specifically, this is due to a merger between the University of Bergen’s Faculty of Humanities with the Bergen Academy of Art and Design, as well as a nearly simultaneous merger between Bergen University College and two other university colleges in western Norway: Stord/Haugesund University College and Sogn og Fjordane University College to become, in January 2017, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL) The music programs across HVL briefly became the largest music department in western Norway in terms of the number of full time teachers, but this has rapidly changed due to an unofficial policy of not replacing retiring teachers.
Grieg Hall is a 1,500 seat concert hall located on Edvard Griegs' square in Bergen, Norway.
Peer Gynt, Op. 23, is the incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's 1867 play Peer Gynt, written by the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg in 1875. It premiered along with the play on 24 February 1876 in Christiania.
Song of Norway is a 1970 American biographical drama musical film adaptation of the successful operetta of the same name, directed by Andrew L. Stone.
Schak August Steenberg Bull was a Norwegian architect.
Arne Bjørndal was a Norwegian hardingfele fiddler, composer and folklorist.
Joachim Grieg was a Norwegian ship broker and politician. Grieg was the founder of Joachim Grieg & Co. one of Norway's largest ship brokerage. He was also politically and civically active both nationally and locally.
"Wedding Day at Troldhaugen" is a composition for piano by Edvard Grieg. It is the sixth piano piece in the eighth book of his Lyric Pieces, bearing the opus number 65.
Griegprisen is awarded by the «Edvard Grieg Museum Troldhaugen» to a Norwegian musician, conductor or musicologist who in a special way have communicated the music of Edvard Grieg. It has also been awarded an extraordinary five times to people who have made a special effort to Edvard Grieg and Troldhaugen. The prize is awarded every year on the birthday of Edvard Grieg, 15 June.
Siljustøl is a museum situated in the borough of Ytrebygda in Bergen, Norway. It was previously the home of composer and musical artist Harald Sæverud and his wife Marie Hvoslef.