Peer Gynt Suite No. 1

The First Suite that Grieg drew from his incidental music to Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt was published in 1888 and soon became one of his most popular works. “Morning Mood” depicts sunrise not over Norway but over the Moroccan desert where Peer finds himself stranded, while “The Death of Åse” movingly evokes the death of Peer’s mother and has long been a favourite for strings. Next comes “Anitra’s Dance”, the Arabic maiden who tempts Peer as she dances to the sultry strains of muted and pizzicato strings, before “In the Hall of the Mountain King” ends the suite with its crescendo from virtual stasis to manic activity as Peer is chased out of the trolls’ subterranean domain. The outer pieces have since been heard in a variety of contexts, with the first appearing as a popular coffee advert and the fourth as an encore from rock band The Who. About Grieg's Peer Gynt Grieg had written little for the theatre until Henrik Ibsen asked him to write incidental music for the first staging of his drama Peer Gynt. Grieg worked on the score for more than 18 months and while the premiere, in Christiania (now Oslo) on 24 February, 1876, was a success, he felt his contribution was unduly written to order. Eight items found their way into two orchestral suites, but the full score was not published until after his death. Highlights from this include the lively “Prelude: At the Wedding”, the grotesque “Dance of the Mountain King’s Daughter”, the evocative “Night Scene” and “Solveig’s Cradle Song”—one of Grieg’s finest inspirations in any medium.