“La Norderie”

It is well known that the great French artists of La Belle Époque were hugely inspired by the art of Japan and the East. But what is rarely mentioned today is the period of a few years in the 1890s when Scandinavian art, Norwegian in particular, was suddenly and powerfully all the rage in Paris. And not only painting, but also literature, drama and – perhaps most of all – music. For two years in particular, 1895 and 1896, the sunburst of orientalism was clouded over by art from a very different part of the world – by the cool landscapes of the north. Le Figaro raged that: “The Norwegians tyrannise us!” Actress Sarah Bernhardt scornfully called it: la Norderie. But, as one critic writes: “the day of the divine Sarah with her melodramas and poisoned daggers was giving way to Norway-fever.”

EPISODE PHOTO
Edvard Munch: Rue Lafayette (1891)
Public Domain

CONTACT
Twitter: @northbynorway
Email: northbynorway@gmail.com

LINKS & SOURCES
Boyle, Andrew J.
Delius and Norway
Boydell and Brewer, 2017

Herresthal, Harald/ Reznicek, Ladislav
Rhapsodie Norvégienne : norsk musikk i Frankrike på Edvard Griegs tid
Norsk musikkforlag 1994

Meyer, Michael
Henrik Ibsen : en biografi
Gyldendal, 1971

Sue Prideaux, Sue
Edvard Munch: Behind the Scream
Yale University Press, 2005

Boschot, Adolphe
“Le Charme de Grieg” in Carnet d’Art (Paris, 1911)
Quoted by Harald Herresthal in Rhapsodie norvégienne (Oslo: Norsk musikforlag, 1994)

Friis, Hanne
Sirkulasjon
(Exhibition catalogue for Vigeland Museum)
Ansten Press, 2022

MUSIC
00:00 North by Norway
written on GarageBand by Andrew J. Boyle, using the Norwegian folksong ‘I Ola-dalom, i Ola-tjønn’

03:55 Cattle Call
Edvard Grieg, Op. 66, version arranged on GarageBand by Andrew J. Boyle

08:00 Torbjørg
Andrew J. Boyle, with GarageBand loops

11:10 Halling
Edward Grieg, op. 17, no. 7

16:50 Sonata
Edvard Grieg, Op. 7, second movement

18:10 Nocturne
Edvard Grieg, op. 54, no. 4

Music performed on GarageBand by Andrew J. Boyle