Peer Gynt Suite

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The Peer Gynt Suites 1 and 2 by Edvard Grieg from the incidental music Peer Gynt to the dramatic poem of the same name by Henrik Ibsen are among the most famous orchestral pieces in romantic music .

History of origin

Memorial plaque on the building of CF Peters Musikverlag in Leipzig

Henrik Ibsen and Edvard Grieg met in Rome in 1866 , but never became friends. At that time Ibsen was working on the dramatic poem Peer Gynt based on Norwegian fairy tales by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen . After the poem's success, Ibsen planned to rework it into a stage play and commissioned Grieg to write the music for it. The play was premiered on February 24, 1876 together with Grieg's incidental music.

Since Grieg was of the opinion that his work would not be accepted outside of Norway, he put together two orchestral suites from this music in 1888 and 1891, dispensing with spoken dialogues and singing . The first suite (Op. 46), he created in the top floor apartment in the house of CF Peters musical publishing house in Leipzig Valley Road 10. It was completed on 18 January 1888, on 1 November 1888 the management of the Gewandhaus Carl Reinecke in Leipzig's Gewandhaus premiered . Grieg completed the second suite (op. 55) on September 12, 1891; it was premiered under his direction on November 14, 1891 in Christiania (now Oslo ) on the occasion of the festivities for Grieg's 25th anniversary as a conductor .

sentences

Suite No. 1, op.46:

  • Morning mood / Morgenstemning ( Allegretto pastorale )
  • Åses Tod / Åses død ( Andante doloroso )
    • Occupation: Str
  • Anitras dance / Anitras dans ( Tempo di Mazurka )
    • Instrumentation: Trgl-Str
  • In the hall of the mountain king / I Dovregubbens hall ( Alla marcia e molto marcato )
    • Instrumentation: 2 (+ Picc) 222-4231-Pk-Gr. Tr.-Bk-Str

Suite No. 2, op.55:

  • The bride robbery . Ingrid's lawsuit / Bruderovet. Ingrid's lament ( Allegro furioso-Andante doloroso )
  • Arabic dance / Arabisk dans ( Allegro vivace )
  • Peer Gynt's homecoming. Stormy evening at sea / Peer Gynts hjemfart. Storm full aften på havet ( Allegro agitato )
  • Solveigs Lied / Solveigs sang ( Andante-Allegretto tranquillamente )

This set of sentences does not correspond to the order of the pieces in the drama. Grieg himself created the two and four-handed piano versions of the two suites.

Adaptations of the work

The Morning Mood , the first movement of Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, is so widely used in advertising, film and television that it is one of the best-known classical melodies. In 1998, the song used Ocean of Light by In-Mood & Juliette the subject of this piece as a hook . The morning mood is the exclusive trailer music for season 2 of the Norwegian television series SKAM . The American metal band Kamelot used the well-known melody from Solvejg's song from the Peer Gynt Suite No. 2 op. 55 in their song Forever .

In 1957 the melodies for the soundtrack of the US film " The Pied Piper of Hamelin " were interpreted.

Also known is In the Hall of the Mountain King . The earliest known use of the piece can be found in the early German sound film M (1931) by Fritz Lang . The piece is whistled in the film by the serial killer Hans Beckert, played by Peter Lorre, and thus functions as his signature melody and is the only music in the film.

In 1960 Duke Ellington wrote a jazz interpretation of the two Peer Gynt Suites for orchestra with the title Swinging Suites by Edward E. & Edward G. The Norwegian Grieg Fund assessed this as a “perversion of national romantic Grieg music” and left record sales in Norway to forbid.

The band Savatage named their fifth album Hall of the Mountain King after this piece. It also includes an adaptation of the original theme for electric guitar . There are other adaptations of In der Halle des Bergkönigs by The Who , Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow , Helloween on the song Gorgar, and by Apocalyptica , who used it as an instrumental title for their album Cult . The Electric Light Orchestra interpreted the theme very faithfully on On the Third Day from 1973. An arrangement of In der Halle des Bergkönigs for guitar was published in 1978 on the CD Waves by Martin Kolbe and Ralf Illenberger .

The GDR band Electra released a rock adaptation of this title as early as 1976 with their long-playing record Adaptionen on the GDR label Amiga .

The melody also appears in the film adaptation of The Doctor and the Dear Cattle . The increasing dramaturgy of the play is also used in Rat Race (2001). The intro of the Finnish television series The Dudesons is also completely underlaid with the melody.

In the 1990s, Bayerischer Rundfunk ran the series “Die goldene Presseschau”, which was carried by this melody.

The film The Social Network also contains The Hall of the Mountain King in one scene. The Oscar- winning soundtrack (which includes the remix) was composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross . The version is based on the generally dark, electronic-industrial score and has influences from the sound of Reznor's band Nine Inch Nails . According to Reznor, it took several weeks for the final version to be completed.

Some recordings

  • Three Suites, Duke Ellington's big band versions of Grieg's "Peer Gynt Suite" (1960, CBS)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hella Brock : Edvard Grieg. Reclam-Verlag, Leipzig 1990, ISBN 3-379-00609-2 , p. 194.
  2. ↑ Hella Brock: Edvard Grieg. Reclam-Verlag, Leipzig 1990, ISBN 3-379-00609-2 , p. 196 f.
  3. ↑ So the correct translation in the new complete edition, in the old Peters edition the subtitle was Stormy Evening on the Coast ; see. Hella Brock: Edvard Grieg. Reclam-Verlag, Leipzig 1990, ISBN 3-379-00609-2 , p. 368.
  4. ^ Bretaigne Windust: The Pied Piper of Hamelin. November 26, 1957, accessed December 31, 2016 .
  5. ↑ Records. Jazz with classical music - Bach with da-ba . In: Der Spiegel . No. 48 , 1964, pp. 154-155 ( Online - Nov. 25, 1964 ).
  6. ↑ Ryan Dombal: Trent Reznor and David Fincher. Interview on Pitchfork Media from September 27, 2010