Peer Gynt: A Notable Collaboration Between Two of Norway’s Greatest Artists
by This collaboration between Norway’s greatest playwright and its leading composer, then, firmly establishes that country’s claim to a full-scale artistic nationalism, as well as its place in the mainstream of world culture.
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The Story
Henrik Ibsen produced the allegorical poetic drama Peer Gynt in 1867. 
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It was based on Norse folk legend with a vain, boastful hero, who is also a chronic liar. Peer lives with his aging mother Aase. On the wedding day of his former beloved, Ingrid, he abducts her and takes her off to the mountains. After she deserts him, he becomes an outlaw and is involved in adventures, including one with the troll king’s daughter in the Hall of the Mountain King. Peer was attacked by trolls (supernatural beings in Scandinavian mythology), but when the church bells rang, the sound frightened the trolls and ran away. He was thus saved by the ringing of the bells. He then goes to live in the woods, and is followed there by the faithful Solveig, who is in love with him. But he soon deserts her to return home in time for his mother’s death, after which he is off again to America, Morocco, and Egypt. When he comes home for the last time, he is a feeble old man, who finds redemption for his wasted life in the constancy and devoted care of Solveig.
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The Music
Six years after it première, Ibsen revised his play and asked Grieg to write incidental music for it.
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Grieg lacked interest in the project at first. He felt that the subject would not stimulate his creativity. But as his wife recorded, “The more he saturated his mind with the powerful poem, the more he clearly saw that he was the right man for a work of such witchery and so permeated with the Norwegian spirit.” His only other theater music had been that written for Björnson’s Sigurd Jorsalfar. He had also begun work on an opera, Olav Trygvason; but when he and Björnson had a falling-out, Grieg accepted Ibsen’s invitation to compose music for Peer Gynt. The play with his music was premiered in Oslo in 1876 and was a great success. Soon after, Grieg divided his score into two orchestral suites, the first of which (op. 46) is the composer’s most popular symphonic work.
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The opening section, “Morning,” is a nature painting rendered in the form of a barcarolle. Its lovely melody has suggestions of yodeling in the mountains and cowbells. This is followed by the poignant elegy for muted strings which accompanies Aase’s death in the play. The third movement is the well-known “Anitra’s Dance,” a rhythmically exciting oriental dance in a mazurka tempo; its exotic air is accentuated by the use of a triangle, and the overall mood is one of Eastern sensuality. The final section of the first suite, entitled “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” conjures up the land of the trolls and gnomes; it is based on a single, rather grotesque motif, which begins in the bassoons and is passed on through the orchestra as intensity builds up to a furious climax. This collaboration between Norway’s greatest playwright and its leading composer, then, firmly establishes that country’s claim to a full-scale artistic nationalism, as well as its place in the mainstream of world culture.
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