With his “Lyric Pieces”, Edvard Grieg was writing a kind of poetic piano diary: between 1867 and 1901 he composed 66 short character pieces, published in ten books. Alongside some fairly virtuosic music there are also numerous simpler dances and melodies that can be played at an early stage. "Norwegian" is the sixth piece of the First book. The melody is taken from traditional Norwegian folk music of which Grieg was a particularly fervent promoter.