Grieg in Performance

The International Edvard Grieg Society, the Grieg Research Centre at the University of Bergen, and KODE Edvard Grieg Museum Troldhaugen invite to

International Research Seminar
2 – 3 September 2022

This seminar’s aim is to shed new light on the performance traditions related to Edvard Grieg in the context of 19th century historical performance-studies, ‘historical informed performance (HIP) and the analysis of historical recordings. The research field on 19th century historical performance practice has increased immensely during the recent decades. However, there still exist few studies examining Grieg from the perspective of performance practice, despite of his obvious significance as composer-performer and even one of the pioneers of early recording. This seminar’s goal is hence to increase our knowledge and understanding of interpretive practices related to Grieg, and how they developed, transmitted, diversified during the 20thcentury. Accordingly, Grieg’s own historical recordings and those with performers closely related to him performing his works deserve special attention and will be a main theme of the seminar. Topics related to this are:

  • Issues and gains in reconstructing Grieg’s performance style with focus on his chamber music for strings (violin sonatas and cello sonata) and his works for piano solo.
  • Issues of analyzing Grieg’s performance style as it is documented in various historical sources
  • The value of historical recordings for understanding Grieg’s compositional poetics ‘beyond the score’   
  • Grieg’s performance style in the context of the influences, schools, and traditions of 19th century pianism
  • History of effect of Grieg as a performer, the formation of national traditions, and the history of stylistic developments

The seminar will be hold at Troldhaugen and the Grieg academy, with period instruments available for active participants. Among the invited speakers will be Liv Glaser and Georgia Violoti (other speakers TBA):

Liv Glaser has been recognized as being amongst the elite of Norwegian pianists. She studied in Oslo with Robert Riefling, at the Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique in Paris and the Moscow Music Conservatory. Later she was studying with Paul Badura-Skoda in Vienna, besides indepth studies of the fortepiano with Malcolm Bilson at Cornell University. Among her recordings are Mozart’s piano sonatas, both on modern grand and fortepiano, Clementi, Schubert, and Grieg’s Lyric Pieces. Glaser has been teaching at the Norwegian Academy of Music since 1973. She was awarded HM The King’s Medal of Merit 1965, the Lindeman Prize 2004 and the Grieg Prize 2014.

Georgia Violoti is a lecturer in the Department of Music and Media at the University of Surrey and her research areas embrace musical performance studies, empirical musicology, music psychology, music education, historical and cultural musicology. She has published on Grieg’s historical performances in international journals and is currently co-editing the book ‘Recorded Music in Creative Practices: Mediation, Performance, Pedagogy’ for the Routledge SEMPRE series.  

There will be a limited number of individual paper presentations. Please send your abstract (ca. 300 words with short biography) by 1 July 2022 to: arnulf.mattes@uib.no.

Grieg international piano competition: The participants are invited to follow the competition program and attend the concerts from 26 August to 3 September 2022: www.griegcompetition.com  

New Executive Committe from 2021

Siebert Nix (The Netherlands) was re-elected as president of The International Edvard Grieg Society at the General Assembly Meeting on Zoom 18 April 2021.

Wojciech Stępień (Poland) was re-elected as vice president at the same meeting.

A new Executive Committee was also elected:
Arnulf Mattes (Chair), Norway/Germany                    
Signe Bakke, Norway                                            
Ida Habbestad, Norway  

Monica Jangaard (Troldhaugen)                               
Gregory Martin (USA)                                      
        

Reference group:
Martha Berit Belt, Norway
Knut Christian Jansson, Norway
Fumie Masaki, Japan
Christoph Siems, Germany

Liubov Syniak, Ukraine

General Assembly Meeting 2021

General Assembly Meeting for The International Edvard Grieg Society will be held on Zoom Sunday 18 April 2021, 15.00-17.00

AGENDA

  1. Opening of the meeting
  2. Registration of the delegates
  3. Election of two representatives to sign the Minutes
  4. Annual reports 2019 and 2020
  5. Treasurer’s reports 2019 and 2020
  6. Reports from the Grieg Societies
  7. Strategy for the Society and choice of venue for the next meeting.
  8. Election
    a)    Election of Executive Committee and its Chair
    b)    Election of Election Committee
    c)    Election of Auditor
    d)    Election of President of the Council Assembly
    e)    Election of Deputy to the President
  9. Miscellaneous

Proposal from the Election Committee for Executive Committee will be available at the meeting. Summons with attachments are sendt by e-mail to all Council Assembly members.


WELCOME TO THE MEETING!

Bergen, 26 March 2021
              

With friendly greetings,
Siebert Nix
President of IGS

Monica Jangaard
Secretary of IGS

Hella Brock has died

On Monday November 29th in the night of Monday to Tuesday, the former professor the musicologist, publicist, and great Grieg connoisseur Hella Brock died at the age of 101!

At first Hella Brock was best known to me for her much acclaimed German-language biography of Edvard Grieg from 1990. Later I met her at the international Grieg conferences in Bergen, Norway and during the German Grieg conferences in Münster and in Leipzig. Her erudition in the field of music science and also her knowledge and involvement in music pedagogy always awed me. Nevertheless, she was always very approachable and was always interested in a good conversation about musical matters of all kinds, not least about matters concerning the life and work of the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg.

In her education she has long taught at colleges and Universities, her warm interest in musical education spoke in all its facets. She published important textbooks on music pedagogy. She collaborated with Norwegian Prof. Finn Benestad in the publication of Grieg’s correspondence with his music publisher C.F. Peters in Leipzig. Hella Brock organized Grieg conferences in Leipzig and founded ‘her’ Edvard Grieg – Gedenk und Begegnungsstätte in Leipzig, which has now become a spiritual and cultural centre for study, concerts, and gatherings.

With her death, we lose a ‘Grande Dame’ with a great spirit of knowledge in the field of music science and in particular in the field of the life and work of Edvard Grieg through her great contributions to the Grieg research! We wish her family a lot of strength!

Siebert Nix – President International Grieg Society

New President in The International Edvard Grieg Society

Siebert Nix (The Netherlands) was elected new president of The International Edvard Grieg Society at the General Assembly Meeting in Bergen on 27 October 2019.

Wojciech Stępień (Poland) was elected vice president at the same meeting.

A new Executive Committee was also elected:
Einar Røttingen (Chair)                     
Signe Bakke                                            
Arnulf Mattes                                        
Njål Sparbo                                      
Monica Jangaard (Troldhaugen)        


Deputies to the Executive Committee:
Martha Berit Belt
Knut Christian Jansson
Gregory Martin (USA)
Liubov Syniak (Ukraine)
Christoph Siems, Germany