In the Hall of the Mountain King (Norwegian: I Dovregubbens hall) is a piece of music by Edvard Grieg, composed for Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt, which premiered in Oslo on February 24, 1876.
A fantasy story written in verse, Peer Gynt tells of the adventures of the eponymous boy.
The sequence in which In the Hall of the Mountain King is used is when Peer sneaks into the Dwarven Mountain King's castle. The piece is played when Peer attempts to escape from the King.
Actions signified by the music
Peer Gynt's slow, careful footsteps are played by bassoons.
The footsteps of the King's trolls are played quietly by other instruments.
When the trolls spot Peer, they give chase and the music begins to speed up.
Peer begins to run, and the music begins to get increasingly louder and faster.
The Mountain King runs into Peer, and Peer quickly runs the other way. The thundering giant that is the King runs too, and the music grows even louder and more manic.
Finally, at the end, the King catches Peer Gynt, picks him up and hurls him out the back door of the castle. The piece abruptly finishes on this note.
Other versions
- SRC, on their album Milestones, released a rock medley of In the Hall of the Mountain King and Bolero.
- Saga, on their album Detours, released a rock version of In the Hall of the Mountain King.
- The Electric Light Orchestra did a heavy rock version on their album, On the Third Day.
- The naked old man with a chicken leg attached to his head whistles In the Hall of the Mountain King in The Ren & Stimpy Show episode Big Baby Scam, but was censored in the United States because it is also a reference to the motion picture M (see below).
- Apocalyptica released a version on their 2000 album Cult
- The Inspector Gadget theme song is based on In the Hall of the Mountain King.
- The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog theme song is based on In the Hall of the Mountain King.
- Dream a Dream by Captain Jack, featured in various games in the Dance Dance Revolution series, is a vocal/techno remix of In the Hall of the Mountain King.
- Shamus, an early video game in the style of Berzerk, used the song as its title music.
- The ground-breaking 1983 computer game Manic Miner played In the Hall of the Mountain King as its theme song.
- One of the Jet Set Willy games, "Join The Jet-Set", featured a simplified version of In the Hall of the Mountain King as the in-game music, as well as a first room named after it.
- The famous British theme park Alton Towers uses In the Hall of the Mountain King as its theme song, and it can be frequently heard as visitors make their way around the park.
- Hall of the Mountain King is an album by Savatage, released in 1987 on Atlantic Records, featuring a song of the same name, which is preceded by "Prelude to Madness" which is an arrangement of Grieg's piece.
- Hall of the Mountain King is a song on Rainbow's 1995 album Stranger In Us All.
- The Who released a rock version called Hall of the Mountain King as a bonus track in the 1995 reissue of The Who Sell Out.
- The theme song of Orson's older brothers on Garfield and Friends is a simplified variation of the tune.
- Microsoft included In the Hall of the Mountain King as one of several preinstalled MIDI files in Windows 95, 98, and 2000.
- The musical theme is also used in the Halloween song "Gorgar."
- "In the Hall of the Mountain King" was the first piece played at the 2005 Bastille Day fireworks at the Eiffel Tower in Paris, an impressive spectacle which included "The Girl from Ipanema" and Daft Punk's song "Robot Rock."
- The theme is used in the Vintersorg song "För Kung Och Fosterland," in their 1998 album Till Fjälls.
- Rick Wakeman used some of the theme in his song "Journey To The Centre Of The Earth".
- Wolf Hoffmann's in his 2000 album Classical.
- On Apple Macintosh computers, the "Cellos" system voice speaks in a tone sequence similar to "In the Hall of the Mountain King."
- In The Learning Company's Midnight Rescue!, "In the Hall of the Mountain King" plays while you are in a room.
- In Chevy Martin's Classic Lounge album which was released in 2002.
- In The Hall of the Mountain King is one of the classical songs (along with another member of the Peer Gynt suite) that plays in the strategy-oriented computer game Hearts of Iron.
- Delinquent Habits used a sample of the piece in their song "The Kind," as part of their 2001 album entitled "Merry Go Round."
Movies and Television
The initially-foreboding and then frenetic melody of In The Hall of the Mountain King is popular for cinematic and television scoring, and was used in:
- The 1931 Fritz Lang motion picture M. Peter Lorre's character, the child murderer Franz Beckert, constantly whistles In the Hall of the Mountain King. (The director's whistling was used, not Lorre's.)
- The animated series The Ren and Stimpy Show (from 1991 onward).
- The 1993 supernatural thriller Needful Things, based on the book by Stephen King.
- The 2001 film Rat Race.
- The 2005 film Tim Burton's Corpse Bride.
- the 1993 The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog
Other pop culture references
- The classic Colossal Cave Adventure contains a central room called "the Hall of the Mountain King."