In the Hall of the Mountain King (Norwegian: I Dovregubbens hall) is a piece of orchestral music, Opus 23, composed by Edvard Grieg for Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt, which premiered in Oslo on February 24, 1876. (It was later extracted as the final piece of Peer Gynt, Suite No. 1, Op. 46.) Although a performance of the full piece runs to only two minutes, it has attained iconic status in popular culture and is easily recognized, though not, perhaps, by name. Opus, from the Latin word opus meaning work, is usually used in the sense of a work of art. In this sense the plural of opus, opera, is used to refer to the genre of music drama. ... Edvard Grieg Edvard Hagerup Grieg (15 June 1843 – 4 September 1907) was a Norwegian composer and pianist who composed in the romantic period. ... Ibsen redirects here. ... For other uses, see Play (disambiguation). ... Peer Gynt is a play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. ... This article is about the capital of Norway. ... is the 55th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1876 Pick up Sticks(MDCCCLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a leap year starting on Thursday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Peer Gynt, Suite No. ...

A fantasy story written in verse, Peer Gynt tells of the adventures of the eponymous Peer. The sequence illustrated by the music of In the Hall of the Mountain King is when Peer sneaks into the Mountain King's castle. The piece then describes Peer's attempts to escape from the King and his trolls after having insulted his daughter. For other uses, see Fantasy (disambiguation). ... An eponym is the name of a person, whether real or fictitious, who has (or is thought to have) given rise to the name of a particular place, tribe, discovery, or other item. ... For other uses, see Castle (disambiguation). ... Troll statue in the forest near Geilo, Norway A troll is a member of a fearsome humanoid race from Scandinavian folklore, and its predecessor Norse mythology, as in The Three Billy Goats Gruff [1], the well-known Scandinavian folk tale in which a troll living under a bridge torments some...

The Music

The famous two-phrase theme, written in the key of H (B) minor, runs thus:

The simple theme begins slowly and quietly in the lowest registers of the orchestra. It is played first by the bassoons, signifying Peer Gynt's slow, careful footsteps. After being recited, the same theme is echoed, but transposed up a perfect fifth (to the key of F-sharp minor, the dominant key) and played on different instruments: these are the King's trolls. The two groups of instruments then move in and out of different octaves until eventually "colliding" with each other at the same pitch; and the trolls, having spotted Peer, give chase. The tempo gradually speeds up to a prestissimo finale, and the music itself becomes increasingly louder and more melodic. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (2201x465, 7 KB) The main theme from Griegs In the Hall of the Mountain King. (Created by Todeswalzer using Finale 2007. ... In music, the dominant is the fifth degree of the scale. ...

The Mountain King himself thunders onto the musical stage and runs into Peer, who quickly runs the other way; these actions are depicted with long strings of diatonic steps, interrupted by brief moments of stillness as the Mountain King looks for the hiding Peer. Peer's cover is at last blown, and the music reaches its loudest and fastest point as he runs out of the cave. A series of crashing cymbals and rapturous timpani rolls then burst forward and silence all the other instruments, with the mountain tumbling to the ground and presumably killing the trolls who had been chasing after the fleeing Peer. The piece concludes appropriately -- in both musical and theatrical terms -- with a return to the tonic, and ends on a final B minor chord, signifying Peer's successful escape. In Music theory, the diatonic major scale (also known as the Guido scale), from the Greek diatonikos or to stretch out, is a fundamental building block of the European-influenced musical tradition. ... The tonic is the first note of a musical scale, and in the tonal method of music composition it is extremely important. ...

Uses In Popular Culture

See also Grieg's music in popular culture. Morning Mood was a favorite of Carl Stalling who often used it for morning establishing shots in Warner Bros. ...

• A version of song was used in the opening credits to the 90s cartoon Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog
• The piece was notoriously used as the tune whistled by (and subsequently used to identify) the child murderer in M (film).
• In the 1957 made-for-television color film of Robert Browning's The Pied Piper of Hamelin, the Piper played the tune on his flute to lure the plague of rats out of Hamelin.
• The tune was arranged as a rock and roll number on separate occasions by both The Who and the Electric Light Orchestra.
• It was used as the in game music for the classic ZX Spectrum platform game Manic Miner.
• The heavy metal band Savatage released an album titled Hall of the Mountain King in 1987, with the instrumental song "Prelude To Madness" being an arrangement of the famous piece of music.
• Due to its use in a television advertising campaign, the tune is widely associated in the United Kingdom with Alton Towers and is heard quite frequently playing around the park.
• Rumors circulated by fans of the rock group King Crimson speculate that the name of the group's debut album, In the Court of the Crimson King, was taken from this classical composition.
• Some bars of this piece appear at the end of Rick Wakeman's Journey to the Centre of the Earth.
• In 1998 Ska-P recorded a version of this piece in their album, Eurosis. The title is called 'Simpatico Holgazan'.
• In U.S. Acres, it's used as a theme song for Orson's evil brothers.
• In 2000, the cello rock group Apocalyptica recorded a version of this piece in their third album, Cult.
• For the trailer of the new film Funny Games (2008), Michael Haneke selected the piece as part of the soundtrack.
• Brian Setzer has used this tune as the basis of "One More Night With You" on the album Wolfgang's Big Night Out (2007)
• The song was used on the Courage the Cowardly Dog episode Farmer Hunter/Farmer Hunted.
• The main theme is used in the Little Einsteins episode The Dragon Kite, as the musical ensemble for the episode.