Edvard Grieg - In the Hall of the Mountain King, piano version (1 MILLION VIEWS TRIBUTE) video free download

"In the Hall of the Mountain King" (Norwegian: I Dovregubbens hall) is a piece of orchestral music composed by Edvard Grieg for the sixth scene of act 2 in Henrik Ibsen's 1867 play Peer Gynt. It was originally part of Opus 23 but was later extracted as the final piece of Peer Gynt, Suite No. 1, Op. 46. Its easily recognizable theme has helped it attain iconic status in popular culture, where it has been arranged by many artists.

The English translation of the name is not literal. Dovre is a highland place in Norway, and "gubbe" translates into (old) man or husband. "Gubbe" is used along with its female counterpart "kjerring" to differentiate male and female trolls, "trollgubbe" and "trollkjerring". In the play, Dovregubben is a troll king that Peer Gynt invents in a fantasy.

The piece is played as the title character Peer Gynt, in a dream-like fantasy, enters "Dovregubben (the troll Mountain King)'s hall". The scene's introduction continues: "There is a great crowd of troll courtiers, gnomes and goblins. Dovregubben sits on his throne, with crown and sceptre, surrounded by his children and relatives. Peer Gynt stands before him. There is a tremendous uproar in the hall." The lines sung are the first lines in the scene.

Grieg himself wrote, "For the Hall of the Mountain King I have written something that so reeks of cowpats, ultra-Norwegianism, and 'to-thyself-be-enough-ness' that I can't bear to hear it, though I hope that the irony will make itself felt." The theme of "to thyself be... enough" – avoiding the commitment implicit in the phrase "To thine own self be true" and just doing enough – is central to Peer Gynt's satire, and the phrase is discussed by Peer and the mountain king in the scene which follows the piece.

The simple theme begins slowly and quietly in the lowest registers of the orchestra, played first by the cellos, double basses, and bassoons. After being stated, the main theme is then very slightly modified with a few different ascending notes, but transposed up a perfect fifth (to the key of F-sharp major, the dominant key, but with flattened sixth) and played on different instruments.

The two groups of instruments then move in and out of different octaves until they eventually "collide" with each other at the same pitch. The tempo gradually speeds up to a prestissimo finale, and the music itself becomes increasingly loud and frenetic.

English translation of the lyrics:

Slay him! The Christian's son has bewitched

The Mountain King's fairest daughter!

Slay him!

Slay him!

May I hack him on the fingers?

May I tug him by the hair?

Hu, hey, let me bite him in the haunches!

Shall he be boiled into broth and bree to me

Shall he roast on a spit or be browned in a stewpan?

Ice to your blood, friends!

(Wikipedia)

Please take note that the audio AND the sheet music ARE NOT mine. Change the quality to 480p if the video is blurry.

Performance by: Claudio Colombo

NB. Thank you for the 1 million views! (almost 1,017,000 at the time of publishing this video) Sorry if the tribute video came a bit late, but please do enjoy.

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-gsarci2011