London

As a youngster, Edvard Grieg visited the British Isles with his father, who travelled there on business.

With time, he came to like Great Britain, where his music was very popular, and from the mid 1880s (his first concert in London came in 1887) he was a regular visitor there.

In London, he would stay at the home of his publisher, George Augner, in a big flat in the Clapham district. The building at 47 Clapham Common bears a blue information plaque. Grieg’s concert tours took him all around England (Manchester, Cheltenham, Brighton) and even to Edinburgh, in Scotland. He was also granted audiences with Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle.

Altogether, Grieg spent more than six months of his life on the British Isles. He also received honorary doctorates of both Oxford and Cambridge universities.

For the autumn of 1907, he planned to conduct his piano concerto at a festival in Leeds, with the young Australian pianist Percy Grainger as soloist.