In the Hall of the Mountain King: Piano Letter Notes

Theme and answer

The sheet has two halves of four bars each.

• Lines one and two are the famous theme. It climbs the B minor scale from B to F♯, r T y u I, bounces off D, and then slips downwards: i T i and u t u step down a semitone each time, which gives the tune its sneaking, tiptoeing feel. Line two climbs again and ends on a held A (p).
• Lines three and four are the answer, the same shape a fifth higher, starting on F♯ (I O P a S). Here the tune turns to F♯ major, with G♯ and A♯ as capitals O and P. The last note, C♯5 (S), is a half note, held for two beats of the march.

The sheet is the melody alone: Grieg’s bass line and accompaniment are left out, so every step is a single key.

Staccato and even

The notes are meant short and detached: the piano edition of 1918 (The University Society) dots every one and adds “e sempre staccato”, always detached. On the piano, lift each key quickly and keep every eighth note exactly the same length; the dashes mark the few longer notes. Leave Space alone here: a sustain pedal would blur the creeping steps together.

The capitals come thick and fast, so learn the fingering on a computer keyboard slowly: Shift stays down for T, I, O, P and S, and is released for the white keys between. The practice mode is useful exactly here, because it waits until each key is right before moving on.

From Peer Gynt

The music comes from Edvard Grieg’s incidental music to Henrik Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt, Op. 23, composed in 1874–75 and first performed on 24 February 1876 in Christiania (now Oslo). Grieg later put this movement fourth in his Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46, marked Alla marcia e molto marcato and in B minor, first published by C.F. Peters in Leipzig in 1888 (IMSLP). Grieg’s music is in the public domain.

To hear another piece in a minor key with a steady, dark pulse, open the Moonlight Sonata.