Grieg: Peer Gynt - Anitra's Dance

Before fully entering into the criticism of the society of his time –existing in the works An enemy of the people and the thousand and one times enacted A Doll's House–, the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen devised in 1867 a work in verse that nonetheless its fantastic character already contained misgivings about the character and psychology of his fellow countrymen. The work commented, Peer Gynt, was originally intended to be read and not enacted but the success of its publication prompted the author to turn it into a play in five acts.

This turnaround made it essential include musical passages to fill the idle times between scene changes: preludes, dances, songs and some choral numbers, as well as "musical backgrounds" to accompany certain scenes or for creating atmospheres. For accomplish this, he resorted to the help of a countryman, the composer Edvard Grieg, an ascending figure in Norway and also in Europe after the overwhelming success of his Piano Concerto.

Edvard Grieg, en 1888
(1843 - 1907)

At the request of Ibsen, Grieg composed around twenty pieces of music. The work was released in February of 1876. The audience found the music that attractive that it did not take long for the score to take on a life of its own. Discarding some of the original pieces or fusing them with one another, Grieg ended up erecting two orchestral suites made up of four pieces each.

Due to its simple beauty, Anitra's Dance, from the Suite N° 1, is an inevitable part of the student orchestras repertoire. The little work depicts an episode in which the protagonist, Peer Gynt, is seduced by the beautiful Anitra by means of a somewhat risqué dance in order to relieve him of his riches, ill-gotten, for sure, but that is another story.

The rendition is by the Antonio Vivaldi Chamber Orchestra, in a concert on the occasion of Valentine's Day, in 2010.

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