Ex. 1-8: Jeg elsker dig

Grieg finished this song in December 1864, at 21, in Copenhagen. It is the third of four songs on poems by Hans Christian Andersen. He gave all four to Nina Hagerup at Christmas, when the two secretly became engaged. No publisher wanted the songs, so in April 1865 he paid to have them printed himself, and they sold slowly. He dedicated them to Andersen, not to Nina. According to the Royal Danish Library, he gave Andersen a copy himself that month.

Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) is known for his fairy tales, but he wrote this short poem before them, in 1830, at 25. That summer he had fallen in love with Riborg Voigt, the sister of a student friend, but she already loved another man. According to his own memoir, he wrote these four lines for her. In them he says that he thinks only of her, and that he will love her for ever. She married the other man, and Andersen never married. When he died 45 years later, he was wearing a small leather bag on his body, and in it was a long letter from her. A friend of Andersen's burned the letter without reading it.

The song became by far the best known of Grieg's songs. He arranged it for piano alone in 1884. It was first recorded in 1899, and there were more than 50 recordings by the time he died in 1907. One researcher later counted 318.

Grieg's song has one verse, and the app uses this form. Many later editions print a second verse, which another composer added for the German edition.

From the album Diamonds in the Snow, sung by Barbara Bonney with Antonio Pappano, piano
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