March 15, 2000 Lecture on Edvard Grieg's Letters at the Library of Congress

The European Division of the Library of Congress and the Royal Norwegian Embassy will present Professors Finn Benestad and William H. Halverson discussing their joint work, Edvard Grieg: Letters to Colleagues and Friends (Columbus, Peer Gynt Press), on Tuesday, April 11, from 12 to 1 p.m. in Room LM301, Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Edvard Grieg: Letters to Colleagues and Friends is the first American edition of a large collection of Grieg's letters previously available only in the original Norwegian and German. Grieg (1843-1907) was a composer whose compositions brought worldwide recognition to the music of Norway. His Peer Gynt suites (1876) are the most familiar of his works.

Professor Finn Benestad recently retired from the University of Oslo, where he served as professor of musicology from 1965 to 1998. He was chairman of the committee that created the definitive 20-volume edition of the complete works of Edvard Grieg.

Professor William H. Halverson retired from Ohio State University in 1987 and has since devoted his time to the translation of books and other materials dealing with Norwegian music.