Grieg: Peer Gynt, 'norsknorskhet' and cowpies

So I learned a new word this weekend. Picked up a copy of Classic FM, a British magazine I buy partly for its articles on classical music but just as much -- or more -- for the free CDs. So this month's CD was "Carnival of the Animals: Highlights from Saint Saens's Popular Work and other Children's Classics." One of them was Edvard Greig's "In the Hall of the Mountain King" (I Dovregubbens hall in Norwegian), the famous snippet from his incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt. The magazine's CD blurb admirably set the tone for what follows:

Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) is to Norway what Washington is to America and Shakespeare to England -- his country's most celebrated human icon. In a letter written in 1874, Grieg declared, "Ive done something about the "Hall ofthe Old Man of Dovre" and I literally can't bear to listen to it, it is so full of cow-turds and Norse-Norsehood!"

I hadn't heard that before, and, naturally, I loved it.

A full text of Grieg's comment is available on line in the Norwegian-language edition of Wikipedia (which also has an alphabetical list of pop covers from Apocalyptica and Big Brother and the Holding Company to a 1970s-vintage British novelty band called the Wombles). It reads:

Og så har jeg gjort noe til Dovregubbens hall, som jeg bokstavelig ikke kan tåle å høre på, således klinger det av kukaker, av norsknorskhet og segselvnokhet! -- Edvard Grieg i brev av 27. august 1874 til vennen Franz Beyer

A rough translation (some of it mine but most of it available elsewhere): "And so I have done something with 'The Hall of the Mountain King,' which I literally cannot bear to listen to, it's so full of cow cakes, Norwegian-Norwegian-ism and self-sufficiency."

(Norwegians have just about the same cultural attitudes we do about self-sufficiency, rugged individualism ... and cattle manure. Kind of like John Wayne with lutefisk.)

Want to hear it? YouTube has an Israeli television screen grab (complete with Hebrew subtitles!) of the Jerusalem Orchestra playing the piece. And a verson by the Finnish heavy metal cover band Apocalyptia in the background of a film student's class project.