It’s the birthday of Norwegian composer and concert pianist Edvard Grieg (1842-1907), the guy who put Norway on the musical map. Grieg’s Holberg Suite, composed 1884, consists of five movements, each based on an 18th century dance form. Here is the third movement, played by the strings of the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra — a group of musicians who make no secret of how much fun they’re having.
THE BLUEBIRD OF BITTERNESS
Home sweet home
Bob's sister Hannah
Bob's sister Ada
Bob's sister Eve
Bob's sister Nan
Bob's brother Otto
A baby picture of Bob and his siblings (clockwise from upper left: Otto, Eve, Hannah, Ada, Bob, and Nan)
Bob's childhood home
Bob's mom and dad
Bob in his youth
Bob's Uncle Ralph and Aunt Edna
Bob's cousin Archibald
Bob's stepbrother Herbie (who really needs to quit smoking)
Bob's cousin Chester
Bob's Great Uncle Norbert and Great Aunt Phyllis
Bob's cousin Saffron (who will do anything for a drink)
Bob's sister-in-law Sybil
Bob's cousin Thorndike
Bob's brother-in-law Vinnie
Bob's cousin Orville, who loves the Green Bay Packers
Bob's nieces Lulu and Bitsy, the biker chicks
Bob's stepsister Eloise, with the twins, Rudy and Trudy
Bob's Uncle Henry and Aunt Rowena
Bob's niece Esmerelda (who likes to live dangerously)
Bob's Great Uncle Arthur up in Saskatchewan
Bob's cousin Louie, the grackle of grumpiness
Bob's nephew Virgil, who loves sports
Miss Screech, Bob's journalism teacher
Bob's second cousin Schlomo in Brooklyn
Bob's Uncle Seymour and Aunt Bernice
Bob's nephew Baxter
Nigel, Bob's pen pal in New Zealand
Bob's sister-in-law Delphine, who volunteers at the animal shelter
Percy the Pickpocket, Bob's third cousin once removed (the relative no one likes to talk about... every family has one)
The Bluebird of Happiness™ (no relation to Bob)
A pair of boobies (also no relation to Bob, but included for readers who desire titillation)
A pair of tits (in case the boobies were insufficiently titillating)
Bluebird Bitter™, the beer they named for Bob
Reblogged this on Die Erste Eslarner Zeitung – Aus und über Eslarn, sowie die bayerisch-tschechische Region!.
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Thank you for reblogging. 🙂
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Always with a great pleasure! Thank you very much for your nice postings. They are like the sunshine in the dark. Have a nice weekend! 😉 Michael
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Delightful! Thank you for the introduction. 🙂
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Lovely. Happy Belated Birthday, Edvard. 🙂 — Suzanne
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[…] Happy birthday, Edvard […]
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Thank you for the link. 🙂
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Nice to see that some ppl play classical music in concert w/o wearing stone faces and penguin suits. And they do play it well.
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And from memory! In fact, if you go to YouTube, you can see them perform the entire suite — all five movements — from memory. (Apparently in order to join this orchestra, in addition to being a virtuoso musician, you also have to have a memory like a steel trap.) In the final movement they cut loose and start dancing around the stage with their instruments, never missing a note.
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OK, I have bookmarked it. Thanks.
Up to now, I have thought of the Holberg Suite as one of many good pieces that are so very popular with the ppl who compile playlists on good radio stations that I hear it a little too often. But hearing and seeing this performance really is special.
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The Peer Gynt Suite #1 seems to be the one that gets scheduled a little too frequently on radio stations around here (especially on listener request programs), but I know what you mean.
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[…] Happy birthday, Edvard […]
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