Compare performersEdvard Grieg
Wedding Day at Troldhaugen: Grieg and Vetter
Wedding Day at Troldhaugen, Op. 65 No. 6
Grieg’s abridged recording of 1903 and Harald Vetter’s complete one play the wedding march.
Recordings in
this comparison
Choose a recording and press Play. Selecting another card continues playback from the matching point in that recording.
Edvard Grieg
The composer played his own abridged version in Paris in 1903, with the march fitted onto a short disc.
Harald Vetter
The complete piece, recorded on 4 October 2006, includes the quiet middle section and the return of the march.
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Each strip shows changes in volume within one recording.
More guests than expected arrived at Troldhaugen for Edvard and Nina Grieg’s silver wedding on 11 June 1892. Four years later Grieg wrote a piano piece on the occasion, Wedding Day at Troldhaugen. His own 1903 recording shortens the piece to two minutes; Harald Vetter plays it complete.
Tempo map
Time taken compared with Edvard Grieg: above 1×, the performer takes longer over the same music; below it, less time.
- Edvard Grieg · reference
- Harald Vetter
Passages compared
Each version plays in card order, for up to 12 seconds of reference music or until the next marked passage, whichever comes first.
- 01
Opening march over low octaves
0:18 in the referenceThe march rests on low octaves and short, clipped chords. Triplets in the right hand lead into the next phrase.
- 02
March with firmer bass
0:52 in the referenceThe march continues with firmer bass notes beneath the right hand’s chords.
- 03
March in full chords
1:14 in the referenceThe piano plays the march in full chords and keeps the short, quick figures between the heavier beats.
Length of each recording
- Edvard Grieg2:01
- Harald Vetter6:56
These times include the lead-in and final fade. Cuts, repeats and disc-side breaks also affect a recording’s length.
Recording notes
Edvard Grieg
The composer played his own abridged version in Paris in 1903, with the march fitted onto a short disc.
Edvard Grieg, piano
2 May 1903, Paris
Harald Vetter
The complete piece, recorded on 4 October 2006, includes the quiet middle section and the return of the march.
Harald Vetter, piano
4 October 2006
Further reading
- Commons — Grieg’s 1903 acoustic recording
- IMSLP — Grieg’s matrix 2149F and Vetter’s CC BY recording
- Marston — Grieg discography and early-disc pitch instability
- Commons — Harald Vetter, 2006; recording-date metadata
- Maureen Buja — Wedding Day’s composition date and contrasting sections
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
- Ernst-Günter Heinemann and Einar Steen-Nøkleberg, Henle preface: the 1892 celebration and 1896 composition
- Grieg, Wedding Day at Troldhaugen: Mutopia score after the 1903 Schirmer edition
- Arnulf Christian Mattes, What Else Can Grieg’s Historical Recordings Tell Us? (2020): Paris recording sessions
How the recordings are matched
The matching follows sequences of pitches, using a method called dynamic time warping. Every recording is mapped to the reference, so switching between two versions goes through that shared clock. Where several reference times match one point, the middle time is used.
- Harald Vetter: match score 0.897. Matched passages available.
Switching stays within the matched span, and trimmed recordings keep their original clock times. Match scores describe similarity in the sound.