Fredensborg Castle

The summer residence of the royal family, in use from 1722, Fredensborg Castle possesses a large art collection, dating from the times when Denmark and Norway were one country, including treasures from the silver mine in Kongsberg and copper items from Røros. The grounds are home to seventy sculptures of Norwegian types from various regions of the country (gathered in the Norwegians’ Valley – Nordmandsdalen). Grieg visited this site on a journey with his friends around northern Zealand in the summer of 1865. In his diary from that time, he noted that the walk around the grounds of Fredensborg Castle in the beautiful weather on 3 August 1865 was very pleasant, and the castle towers rose majestically above the tips of the beech trees. A day later, his friends Feddersen and Horneman left Grieg alone at Fredensborg for a couple of days while the composer spent time playing cards with the Schleisner brothers.

On 6 August, the three friends were reunited, and on 8 August they took another walk around the castle grounds. That twilight walk gave Grieg many impressions, which he described in his diary: ‘The tall lime trees, the crowns of which touched one another like the columns of Gothic arches, seemed to be conveying some important information to me: now the pleasure, fun and laughter have ended’.