In the Hall of the Mountain King
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In the Hall of the Mountain King (Norwegian: I Dovregubbens hall) is a piece of orchestral music, Opus 23, composed by Edvard Grieg for Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt, which premiered in Oslo on February 24, 1876. (It was later extracted as the final piece of Peer Gynt, Suite No. 1, Op. 46.) Although a performance of the full piece runs to only two minutes, it has attained iconic status in popular culture and is easily recognized, though not, perhaps, by name.
A fantasy story written in verse, Peer Gynt tells of the adventures of the eponymous Peer. The sequence illustrated by the music of In the Hall of the Mountain King is when Peer sneaks into the Mountain King's castle. The piece then describes Peer's attempts to escape from the King and his trolls after having insulted his daughter.
[edit] The Music
The famous two-phrase theme, written in the key of B minor, runs thus:
- (listen )
The simple theme begins slowly and quietly in the lowest registers of the orchestra. It is played first by the bassoons, signifying Peer Gynt's slow, careful footsteps. After being recited, the same theme is echoed, but transposed up a perfect fifth (to the key of F-sharp minor, the dominant key) and played on different instruments: these are the King's trolls. The two groups of instruments then move in and out of different octaves until eventually "colliding" with each other at the same pitch; and the trolls, having spotted Peer, give chase. The tempo appropriately speeds up, and the music itself becomes increasingly louder and more melodic.
The Mountain King himself thunders onto the musical stage and runs into Peer, who quickly runs the other way; these actions are depicted with long strings of diatonic steps, interrupted by brief moments of stillness as the Mountain King looks for the hiding Peer. Peer's cover is at last blown, and the music reaches its loudest and fastest point as he runs out of the cave. A series of crashing cymbals and rapturous timpani rolls then burst forward and silence all the other instruments, with the mountain tumbling to the ground and presumably killing the trolls who had been chasing after the fleeing Peer. The piece concludes appropriately -- in both musical and theatrical terms -- with a return to the tonic, and ends on a final B minor chord, signifying Peer's successful escape.
