In the Hall of the Mountain King (Norwegian: I Dovregubbens hall) is a piece of orchestral music, Opus 23, composed by Edvard Grieg for Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt, which premiered in Oslo on February 24, 1876. (It was later extracted as the final piece of Peer Gynt, Suite No. 1, Op. 46.) Although a performance of the full piece runs to only two minutes, it has attained iconic status in popular culture and is easily recognized, though not, perhaps, by name. A fantasy story written in verse, Peer Gynt tells of the adventures of the eponymous Peer. The sequence illustrated by the music of In the Hall of the Mountain King is when Peer sneaks into the Mountain King's castle. The piece then describes Peer's attempts to escape from the King and his trolls after having insulted his daughter.
