Edvard Grieg great admirer of Grieg's music and a strong empathy was quickly established. In a 1907 interview, Grieg stated: “I have written Norwegian Peasant Dances that no one in my country can play, and here comes this Australian who plays them as they ought to be played! He is a genius that we Scandinavians cannot do other than love.” Edvard Grieg died at the Municipal Hospital in Bergen, Norway in the late summer of 1907 at age 64 from heart failure. He had suffered a long period of illness. His last words were "Well, if it must be so." The funeral
Funeral March in Memory of Rikard Nordraak Funeral March in Memory of Rikard Nordraak Edvard Grieg composed his Funeral March in Memory of Rikard Nordraak in 1866, in honour of his friend and fellow Norwegian composer Rikard Nordraak, who had died in March of that year at the age of 23. Grieg deeply respected his fellow musician and took no delay in producing the work. The march was originally written as a piano piece in A minor; Grieg also produced transcriptions of it for brass choir and wind band, in B minor. Grieg valued the work greatly, bringing it along on all of his travels. In one