influenced unmistakably composers of the rank of Tschaikowsky,
the Russian; Paderewski, the Pole; Eugene d'Albert, the
Scotch-English-German; Richard Strauss, the German; and our own
lamented Edward McDowell, the American. "From every point of view that
interests the music lover," says Mr. Finck, "Grieg is one of the most
original geniuses in the musical world of the present or past. His
songs are a mine of melody, surpassed in wealth only by Schubert's,
and that only because there are more of Schubert's. In originality of
harmony and modulation he has only six equals: Bach, Schubert, Chopin,
Schumann, Wagner, and Liszt. In rythmic invention and combination
he is inexhaustible, and as orchestrator he ranks among the most
fascinating. To speak of such a man--seven-eighths of whose works are
still music of the future--as a writer of 'dialect,' is surely the
acme of unintelligence. If Grieg did stick to the fjord and never got
out of it, even his German critics ought to thank heaven for it. Grieg
in a fjord is much more picturesque and more interesting to the world
than he would have been in the Elbe or the Spree."

While Norway has neither permanent opera nor permanent orchestras, she
has produced concert virtuosi of a high order. Ole Bull, the so-called
violin-king, already referred to, was unsurpassed in his day. Among
piano artists may be named the talented composer, Mrs. Agatha
Backer-Gröndahl, Thomas Thellefsen, Edmund Neupert, Martin Knutzen,
and the great composer Edvard Grieg. The flutist Olaf Svenssen and the
vocal artists Thorvald Lammers, Ingeborg Oselio-Björnson, and Ellen
Gulbranson, have also brought distinction to their country.

The male choirs of Norway have always played a leading rôle in the
music life of the nation. The students', merchants', and artists'
singing clubs at Christiania during the past seventy-five years, have