Peer Gynt-Edward Grieg-video fantasy by Franco Tenelli

Grieg's popular Holberg Suite was originally written for the piano but later arranged for string orchestra. Grieg wrote songs with lyrics from Heinrich Heine, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


Video clipPeer Gynt (IPA: [per gʏnt]) is a play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It was written in 1867, and first performed in Christiania (now Oslo) on 24 February 1876, with incidental music by the composer Edvard Grieg. Ibsen wrote Peer Gynt while traveling in Rome, on Ischia and in Sorrento. It was first published on November 14, 1867, in Copenhagen. The first edition comprised 1,250 copies. It was followed by a re-print of 2,000 copies after 14 days. The large sales were mostly due to the success of Ibsen's previous play, Brand. Unlike Ibsen's other later plays, Peer Gynt is written in verse. This is because it was originally intended to be a written drama, not for stage performance. Difficulties due to rapid and frequent change of scene (including an entire act in pitch darkness) render the play troublesome to perform. It is also unlike Ibsen's later plays in that it is a fantasy rather than a realistic tragedy. Perhaps the most famous aspect of this play is Grieg's music piece entitled In the Hall of the Mountain King.Grieg is renowned as a nationalist composer, drawing inspiration from Norwegian folk music. Early works include a symphony (which he later suppressed) and a piano sonata. He also wrote three sonatas for violin and piano and a cello sonata. His many short pieces for piano — often built on Norwegian folk tunes and dances — led some to call him the Chopin of the north.Although Grieg's smaller scale pieces are the most successful musically, the Piano Concerto is his most popular and still frequently performed. The slow movement, with its folk-like melodies, is perhaps its most successful feature. It was championed by pianist/composer Percy Grainger, who befriended Grieg and played the concerto frequently during his long career.Other well-known works are the Lyric Pieces (for piano), and the incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt. Despite In the Hall of the Mountain King being one of Grieg's most popular and enduring compositions, he himself did not care much for it. In a letter to a friend he wrote about the "infernal thing reek[ing] of cow-pies and provincialism." Grieg's popular Holberg Suite was originally written for the piano but later arranged for string orchestra.Grieg wrote songs with lyrics from Heinrich Heine, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and others (op. 4, op. 48, etc.). Grieg's songs now feature frequently in recitals and it is perhaps in these and the Lyric Pieces that his originality shows itself most convincingly.Nikolai Myaskovsky paid a tribute to Grieg by choosing a theme by Grieg for the variations with which he closed his Third String Quartet.