ABSTRACT

Throughout the 1880s Edvard Grieg wrote songs only in languages other than Norwegian. While on a concert tour in Denmark during the winter of 1885–1886 he met the well-known, dynamic Danish poet Holger Drachmann. The two became good friends, and they decided to take a walking tour together the following summer through the Jotunheimen, a magnificent mountain range in central south Norway – the mythological ‘home of the giants’. They determined to use the tour as a spur to creativity; Drachmann was to write poems inspired by the trip, and Grieg would set them to music. Most critics attribute the weakness of the songs to the inadequacy of the poetry. Instead of inspired descriptions of the natural beauty surrounding him, Drachmann wrote superficial poems describing the charms of four young women he met along the way.