Edvard Grieg Memorial and Social Centre, Leipzig

The Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg got his formal musical education in Leipzig. He arrived in the city, for the first time, in September 1858, aged fifteen.

The musical life in Leipzig of that period was vibrant and exciting: the Gewandhaus orchestra was a magnet for Europe’s best virtuosi as a chance to play new stuff. Opera was another source of inspiration and the young Grieg, surely inspired, attended every performance of Wagner’s Tannhȁuser during his first year in Leipzig. There and then he also heard Clara Schumann play her husband’s piano concerto, and met Tchaikovsky and Brahms.

Grieg completed his studies in 1862. Afterwards, he kept in touch with his publisher, Carl Friedrich Peters, at Talstrasse 10, and visited Leipzig several times as a guest of publishers M. Abraham and H. Hinrichsen. On each of those occasions, the flat ‘above the shop’ in the C.F. Peters building was made available to him. It was also here that he composed Peer Gynt Suite n1, in 1888.

After many years of disrepair, this property has finally undergone extensive restoration, courtesy of the memorial and social center which documents the life of Edvard Grieg, and today boasts a permanent extensive exhibition. Here, apart from learning about the life and work of Grieg in Leipzig, visitors can attend concerts in the same room where the Norwegian composer himself once played excerpts from his new compositions to a limited audience.