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Edvard Grieg / III. Romanticism

Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46

1888 · Op. 46 · Orchestra

“Morning Mood”, “The Death of Åse”, “Anitra’s Dance”, “In the Hall of the Mountain King”.

3 min

Recording

IV. In the Hall of the Mountain KingCzech National Symphony Orchestra, as the Musopen Symphony Orchestra · 2012
2:34
“In the Hall of the Mountain King”, the fourth movement of the Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46, depicts the troll king’s hall from Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, and its single four-bar tune is repeated and quickened until the whole orchestra plays it. The Czech National Symphony Orchestra performs it for the Musopen project.
Listening notes
1. Opening theme
  A four-bar theme enters, marked pp and e sempre staccato. It rises by step from B to F♯, falls to D and rises to F♯ again, and the second bar alternates between E♯ and E natural. The four bars then repeat several times.
2. Letter to Frants Beyer, 1874
  In August 1874 Grieg told his friend Frants Beyer that he had written a piece for the troll king’s hall that he could not bear to hear, because it reeked “of cow-pats, of Norwegian-⁠Norwegianness and smugness”. He hoped the irony would come through.
3. Più vivo, closing section
  At Più vivo the dynamic is fortissimo, and Grieg marks sempre stretto sin al fine (pressing on to the end). The tune is unchanged. George Bernard Shaw heard it in London in 1889 and called it “a riotous piece of weird fun”.
Open in the Concert Hall