Musical traditions run back to the age of the Vikings in this picture-postcard Norwegian city.

 

So here I am standing in the northernmost cathedral in Europe staring up into the face of an elephant. The Nidarosdomen, in the Norwegian city of Trondheim, is a miracle of 12th-century stonemasonry, festooned with a gargoyle menagerie: goats, monkeys, dogs, dragons… and very pretty elephants. If Pixar were to design a Gothic cathedral, this is what it would look like.

The Nidarosdomen is my first stop on a quick sightseeing jaunt around Trondheim, where I’ve come to attend the annual Chamber Music Festival. But before I even get to the music, I am captivated by the beauty of this scrupulously conserved little Nordic town. Architecture in Trondheim is piously Lo-Fi: one- and two-storey weatherboard buildings with ornate casement windows, all painted in pastel greens, yellows, pinks… In the city centre, the only flat part, these dolls’ houses cram the...