Nina Grieg Nina Grieg Nina Grieg, née Hagerup (24 November 1845 – 9 December 1935) was a Danish–Norwegian lyric soprano. Nina Hagerup was born in Bergen, Norway. She was the first cousin of composer Edvard Grieg, whom she married. The couple often performed concerts together in Europe, usually to rave reviews. Edvard considered her the best performer of his songs. She was featured as a soloist in Felix Mendelssohn's "Elijah" with "Musikselskabet Harmonien" (later known as the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra) in 1866. The English composer Frederick Delius dedicated two sets of songs to her in the years 1888–1890. Nina Grieg never recorded
Edvard Grieg up in a mountain surrounded by trolls. The music of "In the Hall of the Mountain King" represents the angry trolls taunting Peer and gets louder each time the theme repeats. The music ends with Peer escaping from the mountain. In an 1874 letter to his friend Frants Beyer, Grieg expressed his unhappiness with Dance of the Mountain King's Daughter, one of the movements he composed for "Peer Gynt", writing "I have also written something for the scene in the hall of the mountain King – something that I literally can't bear listening to because it absolutely reeks of cow-pies,