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-Groendahl, Thomas Thellefsen, Edmund Neupert, Martin Knutzen, and the great composer Edvard Grieg.  The flutist Olaf Svenssen and the vocal artists Thorvald Lammers, Ingeborg Oselio-Bjoernson, and Ellen Gulbranson, have also brought distinction to their country.

The male choirs of Norway have always played a leading role in the music life of the nation.  The students’, merchants’, and artists’ singing clubs at Christiania during the past seventy-five years, have had artistic as well as patriotic aims.  Festivals, after the pattern of those held at Cincinnati, and Worcester and Springfield, Massachusetts, have also contributed toward the development of national music.  The most eminent choral leaders in Norway have been Johan D. Behrens, F.A.  Reissinger, and O.A.  Groendahl.  The Norwegian Musical Union has also been active in the development of tonal ideals.  Its aim has been to provide chamber concerts of a high order.  Grieg and Svendsen were its first conductors.  They were succeded by Ole Olsen, who combined the talents of orchestral leader with those of composer, chorister, and band leader.  For many years he directed the Second Brigade Band at Christiania with the rank of captain.  Johan Selmer, also a composer, succeeded Olsen in the direction of the Musical Union; and Iver Holier, a composer of symphonies, orchestral suites, chamber music, and vocal scores, followed Selmer.  Other orchestral leaders are Johan Hennum, Per Winge, and Johan Halvorsen,

CHAPTER XIX

THE WOMEN OF NORWAY AND SWEDEN

No volume dealing with Scandinavian life would be complete without some tribute to the women of Norway and Sweden.  They are magnificent specimens wherever you may find them—­in the kitchen, the factory, the harvest field, the hospital, the schoolhouse, the drawing-room, or the palace.  They are good mothers, good daughters, and good wives, and while their devotion to their sons, husbands, and fathers is not surpassed by their sisters in any land, they are at the same time independent, self-reliant, and progressive to a degree that offers a striking contrast to the statue of the representatives of their sex in