The upcoming VSO concert is a selection of Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suites – a very famous and popular piece, of which many might know the famous melody “In the Hall of the Mountain King”, or “Solveig’s Song”. It is steeped in Norwegian and overall Scandinavian folk tales, or whatever we might want to project onto that folk notion of the north. Today we want to look a bit behind the environmental and economic setup of two of the main authors of the work: Edvard Grieg who composed the music for Henrik Ibsen’s play in verse, Peer Gynt. Both of these Norwegians originate from wealthy upper-class families who made a fortune with trading the many resources the vast country of Norway was offering. Fear not, we also talk about trolls and their relationship to the landscape, and give some pointers of many possible avenues to understand these mythical (?) creatures!

I am joined by Ann-Kathrine Havemose, a lecturer in Scandinavian Studies at the CENES Department of the University of British Columbia, and a native of Northern Denmark, bordering Norway. She specializes in the use of Scandinavian folklore in contemporary writing.