Peer Gynt (eng)

In co-production with Camerata Strumentale Città di Prato
conductor Filippo Maria Bressan
Sophie Gallagher soprano
Choir «Città di Prato»

Grieg: Peer Gynt, Op. 23, music to Henrik Ibsen’s play

CHORAL SYMPHONY || Peer Gynt is an incidental music, composed by Norwegian composer and pianist Edvard Grieg. The piece was written to convert Ibsen’s play into a musical phenomenon and it is one of the most appreciated score of the Nineteenth century. Great Florentina composer Piero Bellugi, who sadly passed away 20 years ago, loved this masterpiece and in 2001 led Camerata Strumentale di Prato in a superb interpretation of Peer Gynt.

PEER GYNT: THE PLAY

Norwegian playwrite and theatre director Henrik Ibsen ideated Peer Gynt in 1867, while traveling Italy. Its first representation took place in Oslo, February 24 1876.
Peer Gynt is a five-act play in verse, primarly intended for reading as deduced from its frequent scene changes, events unfolding in complete darkness and complex locations.  The play sources features from old Norwegian tales and legends: there are witches, trolls and magic spells which are quite unusual in Ibsen’s production, mainly focused on social theatre and realism. 

EDVARD GRIEG: THE MUSIC

Ibsen and Grieg first met in Rome in 1866. Their collaboration started when the director asked his compatriot to compose a score to his “Peer Gynt”. Grieg eagerly accepted, but finished his work only in 1875, finding the play “a terribly unmanageable subject” as stated by Grieg himself. Finally it resulted in a five-act and twentysix-movement score and the play’s lavishly staged premiere took place in the Mollergaden Theatre, Christiania (now Oslo), with the orchestra led by Grieg himself.

When Peer Gynt was revived in Copenhagen in 1885, Grieg took the opportunity to re-orchestrate much of the music of the Op. 23, obtaining two symphonic Suites composed by four episodes each (op 46 and op 55).
These Suites became really famous and the whole “Peer Gynt” masterpiece has been very appreciated throughout the centuries, even if rarely entirely staged due to  its lenght.