ABSTRACT
Edvard Grieg’s songs in the German language are scarcely discussed in the literature, and when they are, it is largely with dismissal. Monrad-Johansen, one of Grieg’s more prominent and trustworthy biographers, felt betrayed that Grieg had returned to German after a hiatus of more than twenty-five-years. Although several of the commentators speak rather disparagingly of Grieg’s return to the style of the German Lied, it is actually his genial ability to crawl into a poem, to feel it from the inside out, which leads to his composing in a given style. The German songs sound German because they are German, and Grieg was well enough acquainted with the German language and culture to have absorbed the musical language as well, whether unwittingly or deliberately. Many of his inimitable harmonic touches, his love of modality, his chromaticism, and his use of folk-like melodies are evident throughout the opus.
