Ole Bull had traveled the world over playing the violin. He looked over Edvard's compositions and made the boy play them to him. You can see him nodding his head in pleasure as he listens. His fine eyes are lighted up. He tells the boy composer that his music is quite good, but that there is a lot for him to learn yet. So he must study earnestly and make many sacrifices.
Then Ole Bull sits down and talks with Father and Mother Grieg. It is a serious talk, as one can see. Finally, when the talk is finished, Ole Bull takes the wondering boy by the hand and says to him:
"You are going to Leipzig to study and become a fine musician."
So Edvard Grieg left his home city, Bergen, its mountains, its fjords, its people, his father and mother, and traveled south through Norway, across the water and into Germany. No doubt he was a lonesome boy. Life had become serious all at once and there was much to be done.
It was all strange and new. Instead of hills and the waters of the fjords, there were tall, dark houses, gloomy streets, and such a lot of hurrying people.
But he soon grew used to it all and was busy as could be with lessons in piano and harmony. Just as in the earlier days in school, so in Leipzig, Edvard wrote music as it sounded in his heart. In the harmony lessons he could not make himself write plain chords to the bass which was given him as an exercise. He wrote the light, airy, lovely, fanciful tunes and rhythms that were singing within him. And just like the schoolmaster at home, the harmony teacher shouted at him, saying:
But you remember that Ole Bull understood the boy's music. While here in Leipzig there were many who understood it too.
Bit by bit Edvard made friends who loved to listen to his pieces. One of them was Niels Gade, a fine musician in Denmark, who was a friend of Schumann's, who one time, wrote a Northern Song on the letters on Gade's name. It begins like this:
[Illustration: No. 10 GADE'S MUSICAL NAME]
And Edvard too once wrote a fugue on the letters G-A-D-E.
So inspiring was his music study that Edvard worked very hard. He composed a great deal of music which slowly made friends for him. Robert Schumann was one who spoke kindly of the young Norwegian and his music. And so he grew and improved. Because he was true to his talent, he made many friends not only in Leipzig but throughout Europe, as we shall see.