Blue Plaque For Composer Edvard Grieg

Norway’s most celebrated composer Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) was commemorated with an English Heritage Blue Plaque on 16 September 2004 at 3pm at 47 Clapham Common North Side, London, SW4, where he stayed when performing in London.  The Blue Plaque was unveiled by the Norwegian Ambassador, H E Mr Tarald O Brautaset.

Grieg nearly always stayed at 47 Clapham Common North Side, the home of his publisher George Augener, on his visits to London from the late 1880’s until 1906, when he was at the height of his fame and his music was more popular in England than that of any other living composer.  He found himself lionized whenever he came to England and was awarded honorary doctorates at both Oxford and Cambridge universities.

As a child, Grieg was encouraged to pursue his natural interest in music by the violinist Ole Bull, a friend of his parents.  Grieg studied at the Leipzig Conservatory and left in 1862 to study under Niels Gade in Copenhagen.  It was in Copenhagen that he met the composer Rikard Nordraak, who inspired Grieg with his passionate advocacy of the rich heritage of Norwegian folk music.  Grieg’s subsequent performances of Norwegian music, often with his wife, the singer Nina Hagerup, established him as a leading figure in the music of his own country. 
Grieg composed the first of ten books of “Lyric Pieces” in the mid 1860s, he completed his first musical masterpiece the Piano Concerto in A minor in 1868, and founded the Musical Society in Oslo, Norway, in 1871.  In 1874, he was invited by Ibsen to write the incidental music for a stage production of “Peer Gynt”.  Grieg gave concerts of his own music and conducted the Bergen Harmonic Society from 1880 to 1882.  His music embodied his own artistic creed that: “One must first be a human being.  All true art grows out of that which is distinctively human.” 

In 1888, Grieg made his first of many later personal appearances in London, performing at a Philharmonic Society Concert at St James’s Hall.  From 1888 until 1906, Grieg appeared at a number of musical venues around the country, conducting and performing his own works.  His concerts were usually sold out, and sometimes hundreds of people were turned away from the door.  Grieg and Nina gave a recital for Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle in 1897 and in 1906 they performed for King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra at Buckingham Palace. 
 
Grieg was equally popular around the world.  By the time of his death in 1907, Grieg was an international celebrity, greatly admired by fellow composers such as Brahms and Tchaikovsky, and commonly termed the “Chopin of the North”.  He was given the state funeral of a national hero and today his home at Troldhaugen, near Bergen, in Norway, is a major tourist attraction.