Troldhaugen

Troldhaugen is the former home of the composer Edvard Grieg and his wife, the singer Nina Grieg, at Troldhaugvegen in the Hop district south of Bergen, in Vestland county, Norway. The couple moved into the villa in 1885, and Grieg lived and worked there each summer until his death in 1907. The house, built in 1885, is a wooden villa in a Norwegian-Swiss style, set above the lake Nordåsvatnet, and its rooms have been preserved with the original furniture, paintings, musical instruments and personal belongings. Visitors can see the living room with Grieg's Steinway piano, the rooms where the couple entertained guests and the study. A small composer's hut stands by the water, where Grieg worked in solitude, and it is preserved as he left it. The graves of Edvard and Nina Grieg are cut into a rock face nearby, overlooking the lake. The site was donated to the public after Nina's death, and a museum was opened in 1928. A modern building, completed in 1985 and rebuilt later, houses the Grieg Museum with exhibitions on his life and music, a concert hall, Troldsalen, and a shop and cafe. Concerts of Grieg's works are held there at lunchtime during the summer season. The approach is chronological in the house and thematic in the museum, with audio and film material. Conservation of the villa and the hut is carried out by the Grieg Museum, which is run by Bergen City and Grieg Foundation interests.