Edvard Grieg

Summary

On one Scandinavian concert tour [1905] I made a partnership with the Italian pianist Ernesto Consolo, despite which we remained loyal and affectionate friends to the day of his death. Of course he was a delightful fellow and outside of music was better educated than the average pianist. We were to “do” (as the American saying goes) eighteen concerts in something like twenty-one days, in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, and Consolo was looking to it all with considerable excitement, as it was to be his first (though my second or third) acquaintance with those countries and people.

I knew that if one played Norrköping one would also play Nyköping, but also, inevitably, if one played Lund it would be followed—or preceded— by Malmö; that one would consume considerable quantities of Swedish Porter in Göteborg and Cederstöm's Caloric (Svenska) Punschet in Stockholm. The ceremonial was to order a quart bottle and a large pot of black coffee simultaneously, and once the “Skål” was pronounced the liquor was consumed with the utmost gravity, to its last drop, all the while keeping your eyes steadily on those of your partner (male or female, a thing I found hard to do in the latter case without winking, if ever so slightly), following it by a deep bow and a gesture to show the emptied glass to one's companion. Then, from the other hand, several sips, or an entire demitasse, of black coffee were taken down, for the Swedes—as the Finns— argued that the Punsch being one type of poison and the coffee another, each counteracted the effects of the other, and thus the tune could go on merrily all night, a thing I experienced often and always to my abiding remorse. My memories of Swedish punch are that it affected me as no other strong alcoholic drink ever had. With all others my head remained perfectly clear and the stimulation made my thoughts come quicker than I could possibly rush words to express what was already being driven away by new avenues or ideas; whereas with the punch my spirits rose equally to fantastic flights, my words came in torrential flow, but when I tried to rise from the table my legs, from my knees down, were leaden and refused to come to life.