This is also called “Ingrid’s Complaint” and “Brautraub,” or the robbery of the bride. It is the first of the scenes in the drama which Grieg has rendered into music, and represents one of the earliest escapades in the life of the hero, when he attended the rustic festivities of a wedding in the neighborhood, and, seized with a sudden infatuation for the bride, Ingrid, ran away with her to the mountains, in the face of the assembled company. The first four measures, marked “allegro furioso,” suggest the furious movement and delirious excitement of the flight and pursuit, contrasting ludicrously with the dazed, helpless astonishment of the disappointed bridegroom.
The following protracted plaintive minor strains embody the complainings and reproaches of Ingrid, grieving for a life ruined and happiness destroyed, from which Peer suddenly makes his escape, brutally leaving her to her fate in the hills; and the first four measures are repeated at the close, to indicate that the only lasting impression made upon him by the whole affair was that of the exciting and triumphant moment of his success.
2. Troll Dance
This is the most graphic of all the numbers, and is sometimes called “In the Hall of the Mountain King.” The troll seems to be the Scandinavian mountain spirit, but more of the nature of gnomes, kobolds, and goblins than of the gentle elves and fairies of English lore. After deserting the unfortunate Ingrid in the forest, Peer fled still deeper into the rugged fastnesses, where he was surrounded at nightfall by a pack of trolls, who alternately teased and entertained him with their pranks and antics, until scattered at dawn by the sound of church-bells in the distance.
The grotesque character of this movement admirably depicts the uncanny mood and nature of the trolls. The opening measures are light and weird, fantastically suggesting the stealthy footsteps of the gathering pack of trolls, emerging on tiptoe from the mists and shadows of the night, and cautiously surrounding their uninvited guest. Little by little the movement becomes more impetuous, as the hilarity and excitement increase, until toward the close it grows to an incoherent whirl and rush, above which ring out sharply the gruesome shrieks of the infuriated goblins, balked of the continuance of their vindictive delight in tormenting their victim, by the approach of dawn.
3. Death of Ase
On returning to his mother’s hut in his native village, after these and many other adventures, Peer finds her on her death-bed, and remains with her through the night, during which she passes away, enlivening her last hours with the most preposterous tales and pantomimes. This scene of the drama, in spite of its solemnity and sadness, carries the fantastic to the extreme verge of the grotesque.
The illustrative music is cast in the mold of a “funeral march,” without trio and with but one well-developed theme. In it Grieg has emphasized only the somber and tragical aspect of the situation, ignoring entirely its touches of ghastly humor. The utter and crushing despair of a wrecked and disappointed life, of shattered hopes and unrequited and unappreciated maternal affection, sobs through its strains, enhancing the pangs of approaching dissolution. Its mood is that of unqualified gloom, unrelieved by a single vibration of hope or consolation.
4. Arabian Dance
In the interval which has elapsed since the death of Ase, our hero, now in the prime of life, driven by his erratic spirit and love of adventure, has landed upon the coast of Africa, after being fairly hounded out of his own country by the ridicule and contempt of his neighbors. This scene takes place in an oasis of the Great Desert, where an Arab chief has pitched his tent, and where Peer, mounted on a stolen white charger and clad in stolen silk and jeweled robes, has arrived in the rôle of the prophet to the Bedouins. A bevy of Arabian girls are dancing before him in oriental costume, pausing to render homage at intervals to the supposed prophet, who reclines among cushions, drinking coffee and smoking a long pipe. The music begins with a monotonous rhythmical figure in the accompaniment, suggesting the beat of tambourines and castanets, and the melody of the opening strain is weird rather than bright, stealthily playful rather than openly gay, rising soon to a considerable degree of excited movement. The trio, with its double melody and its languorous warmth of cadence, tells of increasingly involved figures in the dance and a more voluptuous, seductive grace of motion among the dancers. Then the opening strain is repeated, with its clash of tambourines, its tinkle of silver bangles and anklets, and its mood of repressed, but jocose, humor, beneath a flimsy veil of fictitious gravity.