Roy Ellefsen [SMTP:[log in to unmask]] wrote:

>I'm doing this piece with my college musica appreciation class.  I have
>always assumed that it is programatic, but none of the books I have give
>the program, nor does the CD insert.  Does anyone out there know what is
>being described? When a piece is intentionally programatic, I like to give
>the program to my students as part of understanding what the composer is
>trying to do.  Am I correct in remembering that the music is after a play,
>but Ibsen maybe?

Peer Gynt is a long dramatic poem (or verse drama) by Ibsen about a
Faustian hero - "Faustian" in the sense that the hero wreaks a lot of havoc
on innocent folk, although he doesn't sell his soul to the devil.  The
music describes, if I recall correctly, the attempt of Peer Gynt to escape
the kingdom of trolls.  Grieg, by the way, disliked the play and the
mountain king sequence in particular.

It amazes me that I have heard of only one production of this play in the
US beyond the 1920s - Stacey Keach did it on Broadway during the Sixties or
Seventies.  After all, Ibsen's a major figure.  Perhaps we're just not
producing the kind of classical actors or of theater-goers necessary.

Steve Schwartz