Morning Mood (Norwegian: Morgenstemning; German: Morgenstimmung), sometimes abbreviated to Morning,[1] is a composition belonging to Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt, Op. 23, written in 1875 as incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's play of the same name, and was also included as the first of four movements in Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46. Along with In the Hall of the Mountain King, Morning Mood is one of Grieg's best known works and is often used in films, television commercials, and shows (most notably cartoons): see Grieg's music in popular culture.
The piece depicts the rising of the sun during Act IV, Scene 4 of Ibsen's play, which finds the eponymous hero stranded in the Moroccan desert after his companions took his yacht and abandoned him there while he slept. The scene begins with the following description:
As the Peer Gynt Suites take their pieces out of the original context of the play, Morning Mood is not widely known in its original setting, and images of Greig's Scandinavian origins more frequently spring to the minds of its listeners than those of the desert it was written to depict.[1]