Edvard Grieg Was Born Here

After returning from yesterday’s adventure seeking Edvard Grieg’s birthplace, Glenda found some new information on the internet. Following the explosion in 1944 that destroyed most of the houses on Strandgaten, new construction began, and the lots on the street were re-numbered with new addresses. So lot number 152 in Grieg’s time has a different number now. I suspected that the vacant lot we found beside the Comfort Inn at No. 152 Strandgaten yesterday may not have been the birthplace of Edvard Grieg.

My first thought was simply to go up one side of Strandgaten and down the other, looking for the historical plaque which, Wikipedia affirms, marks the spot of the composer’s birth. Wikipedia is not omniscient. If it was wrong about the address, it could be wrong about the plaque. If there is no plaque, I might be leading Glenda on a wild goose chase. Then it occurred to me that on the way over to Strandgaten we pass the tourist information office. Perhaps they would know the new address.

There I waited in line for a few minutes before advancing to the desk where I talked with a young Norwegian woman, blonde, maybe twenty years old, who looked as though she had just stepped out of the pages of a Norse fairy tale. I rehearsed all that had happened in our search so far, and she seemed genuinely interested.

When I finally asked her, “Do you have any idea of the new address for the location of Grieg’s birthplace?”

She thought for just a second and said, “We need to consult the public library.”

Hoping it was within walking distance I asked, “Where is that?”

“Just a minute,” she mumbled as she typed a few strokes on her keyboard. The website came onto her laptop screen for the Bergen Public Library Online.

Oh! I really am a dinosaur. I was contemplating the walk to the library.

She typed in a few more keystrokes, and said, “What used to be Strandgaten number 152 is now at number 208.”

“You’re good,” I said.

She smiled. “I hope you find it.“

Glenda and I walked for maybe ten more minutes, past the Comfort Inn we photographed yesterday near number 152, to an ordinary looking commercial building with the address Strandgaten 208. Embedded in the front wall is a bronze plaque reading in Norwegian, “In this place stood the birthplace of Edvard Grieg 1843-1907. The house was destroyed by the explosion in the harbor on April 20, 1944.”Baca selengkapnya