Presented at the Grieg Conference in Bergen June 2, 2007
Gregory Martin, USA
Doctoral student, Worcester College, Oxford
Great Britain
Grieg as Storyteller: the Poetics of the Ballade in G Minor, Op. 24
We are of north-Teutonic stock, and as such we have much of the Germanic people’s propensity toward melancholy and brooding. However, we do not share their desire to express themselves broadly and verbosely. To the contrary. We have always loved brevity and succinctness, the clear and concise mode of expression—just as you can find it in our sagas, and as any traveler could observe even today in our social intercourse. These qualities are also what we aim for in our artistic endeavors. When Edvard Grieg penned this observation in 1900, he said as much about himself as about Norwegians in general.
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Gregory Martin paper 2007