Weingarten's Season: Ragnhild Hemsing & Trondheim Soloists

Lake Constance Festival 2026 Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt Suites are among the best-known orchestral works of Romantic music. However, the adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's play of the same name for the Norwegian folk instrument, the Hardanger fiddle, is likely to be unknown. Norwegian violinist Ragnhild Hemsing has explored one of Norway's most famous and legendary figures: Peer Gynt. To this end, she had selected sections of the Peer Gynt incidental music arranged for her solo instruments, the Hardanger fiddle and violin, together with a string orchestra. The influence of Norwegian folk music and the traditional Hardanger fiddle on Grieg's composition is particularly noticeable in the piece "Morning Mood": the first notes of this work correspond exactly to the resonance strings of the Hardanger fiddle: A F# E D E F#. Ragnhild Hemsing, who won the OPUS KLASSIK award in 2021, also integrates another aspect of folk music into the suites: improvisation. "For me, with my roots in folk music, this is completely natural. It wasn't written down. When improvising, I draw on the freedom I feel in music and on the tradition I want to bring to the classical genre." Ragnhild Hemsing is accompanied by the internationally renowned Trondheim Soloists. "The Peer Gynt Suites now sound different and have a new tone. It's been an exciting and rewarding process of exploration," as the musician emphasizes. It's more authentic than the original.