Morning Mood. Peer Gynt - Grieg. FLUTE, OBOE solo

Peer Gynt, Op. 23, is the incidental music to Henrik Ibsen’s 1867 play of the same name, written by the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg in 1875. “Morning Mood“ (Norwegian: Morgenstemning i ørkenen, lit. ’Morning mood in the desert’) is part of Peer Gynt. Written in E major, the melody uses the pentatonic scale and alternates between flute and oboe. The piece depicts the rising of the sun during act 4, scene 4, of Ibsen’s play, which finds Peer Gynt stranded in the Moroccan desert after his companions took his yacht and abandoned him there while he slept. The scene begins with the following description: “Dawn. Acacias and palm trees. Peer is sitting in his tree using a wrenched-off branch to defend himself against a group of monkeys. “Morning Mood“ is not widely known in its original setting, and images of Grieg’s Scandinavian origins more frequently spring to the minds of its listeners than those of the desert it was written