Edvard Hagerup Grieg

Edvard Hagerup Grieg was born in Bergen, Norway, on June 15, 1843. His pianist mother, Gesine, gave him his first musical training, and violinist Ole Bull encouraged the family to send him to the Leipzig Conservatory in 1858. After further work in Copenhagen, Grieg developed an international career as pianist, conductor, and composer. His Piano Concerto in A minor, music for Peer Gynt, Lyric Pieces, songs, and chamber works helped give Norwegian musical idioms a prominent place in European Romanticism. He died in Bergen on September 4, 1907.

Grieg’s connection with Behold a Host, Arrayed in White is specifically that of harmonizer and arranger, not folk-melody composer. His Album for Mandssang, Op. 30, published in Christiania in 1878, contained twelve arrangements of Norwegian melodies for male voices. Its tenth number treated the traditional tune associated with Brorson’s hymn in a setting for solo voice and four-part male chorus, marked Andante religioso. Hymnal versions derived from this tradition often credit Grieg, but the underlying melody is cataloged as a seventeenth-century Norwegian folk tune, commonly associated with Heddal in Telemark. Grieg’s sensitive use of traditional materials helped move the tune from oral and regional circulation into concert and, through later adaptation, congregational use.