Peer Gynt Suite no. 1, op. 46

Ibsen asked Grieg in 1874 to provide music for the stage version of his dramatic poem, and the two argued their way through a score of some two dozen numbers, first heard in Christiania in February 1876. Grieg thought little of much of it and only later drew two concert suites from the material. The first, assembled in 1888, takes four numbers — the morning prelude, the death of Åse, Anitra's dance and the flight from the mountain king's hall — and rearranges them freely, ignoring their order in the play.