Page:Scottishartrevie01unse.djvu/383

effects, can do, will be found in his works. Many of them are models of tender feeling and refined and graceful treatment, but we shall look in vain for signs of the growth of a master-mind, such as ' rise on step- ping-stones of their dead selves to higher things.' What he was in his early years he has remained. What he could do then he can do now ; nothing less, nothing greater.

Edvard Grieg belongs to a younger generation than Hartmann and Gade, having been born in 1843 at Bergen, where his father held a good position. His mother was a good musician, and gave him his earliest musical instruction. As he grew up, Ole Bull, who was connected with the family, was struck by his talent, and persuaded his father to give him the oppor- tunity of a systematic education. At the age of fifteen, therefore, young Grieg set out for Leipsic, where he remained for four years occupied with the visual routine of the Conservatorium, and revelling in the composi- tions of Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Chopin. As the result of an illness, he quitted Leipsic in 1862, and after some time spent under Gade in Copenhagen, returned to his native land. He took up his residence at Christiania, where he has ever since occupied him- self in teaching and conducting, being enabled, through a pension, to find sufficient leisure for composition. Of late years he has more than once visited London, where he has appeared in the concei-t-room, playing his own pianoforte concertos. Grieg's musical individuality is more strongly national than Gade's. His thorough equipment in the history and science of his art has never been allowed to fetter his genius, and alike in the forms of expression he has chosen, in the sources of his melodic inspiration, and in his revolt against con- ventional treatment, he sounds a perfectly distinctive note among modern composers. He has as yet essayed little in the larger forms ; the piano concerto above- mentioned is his chief effort to deal with the orchestra, and its success will doubtless lead him further in this direction. He has hitherto rather chosen to work within the naiTower limits of the Lied form, feeling no doubt that in this sphere there is much to be done in giving a definite artistic setting to the popular songs and dances of the northern lands. In embodying the spirit of national melodies in a form which happily combines graceful treatment with the preservation of native strength and beauty, he has shown himself un- rivalled, and he has further achieved conspicuous suc- cess in compositions of a similar kind where a more ideal touch is possible. Some of his settings of modern poems place him very high in the i-anks of song-writers. His characteristic piano pieces are also well known and justly esteemed. JoHANN Severin Svendsen is a contemporary of Grieg's, having been born in 18-10 in Christiania, where his father was a military bandmaster. Johann showed his musical precocity by producing a composition for the violin at the age of eleven, and having entered the

JOHANX SEVERIN' SVENDSEN.

army at fifteen, he soon became himself a bandmaster. He made himself proficient in the flute, clarionet, and violin, and we next find him playing in the Christiania theatre. After travelling in Sweden and Germany, he obtained a stipend from the King and began the sys- tematic study of the violin, but paralysis in the hand obliged him to turn his attention to composition. He was in Leipsic from 1863 to 1867, studying under David, Richter, Reinecke, and Hauptmann, and com- posing quartetts and a symphony. He then travelled in Denmark, Scotland, and Norway, and proceeded to Paris, where he remained three years, playing in orchestras, but composing little. In 1870 he visited Weimar, and became acquainted with Liszt and Tausig. About this time several of his works were performed with much success at Leipsic, the chief being the sym- phony in D, a 'cello concerto, and the overture to Sigurd Skmbe. After some time spent in Baireuth, in intimacy with Wagner, Svendsen returned to Christi- ania, where he conducted and taught for five years, till, receiving an annuity, he was able to give more time to composition. Since then he has visited Munich, Rome, London, and Paris. He has married an Ameri- can lady. His place in the history of musical develop- ment is very dift'erent from Grieg's ; there is in his com- positions little or no trace of national characteristics. He rather represents the opposite tendency, which makes for cosmopolitanism in art. His is a robust nature, impatient of conventional trammels, and finding its affinities with the apostles of the romantic school, and he accordingly represents the claim of Scandinavia to share in the latest developments of musical progress. He has shown great skill in writing for the orchestra, and his works are becoming widely known.