Classical Music | Soprano

Edvard Grieg

Jeg elsker Dig, Op. 5, No. 3 Play Play

Tina Beverly	Soprano
William Billingham	Piano

Recorded on 08/16/2005, uploaded on 01/18/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

A youthful collection of songs, Edvard Grieg’s Melodies of the Heart, op. 4 was composed in 1864, while the composer was living in Copenhagen. In similar manner to Robert Schumann’s (whose music Grieg idolized) many songs inspired by Clara, Grieg’s opus 4 was inspired by his future wife Nina Hagerup, from whom he learned the expressiveness and nuance capable of the human voice. According to Grieg himself, though biased he may be, she was the finest interpreter of the Melodies. Of the four songs, Jeg elsker Dig (“I love but thee”) is perhaps the most widely known. On a brief four-line lyric by the composer’s friend Hans Christian Andersen, Grieg creates a magnificently enrapturing song. The piano provides a brief prelude, rich in sensuous, chromatic harmonies, before the vocalist enters with Andersen’s lyrics. The vocal melody builds slowly. At first somewhat restrained, it proceeds towards a half cadence in the tonic key of C major at the close of the second line. The third line begins similar to the first, but quickly builds into the song’s ecstatic climax, formed around the final line of text and fervent repetitions of the phrase “Jeg elsker Dig.” Joseph DuBose