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Album
Peer Gynt
Edvard Grieg →246,861 listeners1,055,065 plays
classicalinstrumentalscandinavianromanticedvard grieg
about this album
Peer Gynt (Norwegian pronunciation: ; English: /ˈpɪər ˈɡɪnt/) is a five-act play in verse by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen, loosely based on the fairy tale Per Gynt. Interpreted in its day as a satire on the Norwegian personality, Peer Gynt is the story of a life based on avoidance. Ibsen asked Edvard Grieg to compose incidental music for the play. Grieg composed a score that plays approximately ninety minutes. Grieg extracted two suites of four pieces each from the incidental music (Opus 46 and Opus 55), which became very popular as concert music. Only one of the sung parts of the incidental music ended up in these suites (the last part of 2nd suite, Solveig's Song, the solo part now played by violin rather than sung, though the vocal version is sometimes substituted). (Originally, the second suite had a fifth number, The Dance of the Mountain King's Daughter, but Grieg withdrew it.) Grieg himself declared that it was easier to make music "out of his own head" than strictly following suggestions made by Ibsen. For instance, Ibsen wanted music that would characterize the "international" friends in the fourth act, by melding the said national anthems (Norwegian, Swedish, German, French and English). Reportedly, Grieg did not have the right temperament for this task. The music of these suites, especially “Morning Mood” starting the first suite, “In the Hall of the Mountain King”, and the string lament “Åse's Death” later reappeared in numerous arrangements, soundtracks,
