Johan Halvorsen (1864–1935) was a Norwegian composer and violinist. His best-known works today are Entry of the Boyars and Bergensiana (variations on the hymn of the city of Bergen), along with his Passacaglia and Sarabande (duos for violin and viola based on themes by George Frideric Handel).
He wrote a lot of music performed in plays at the National Theatre in Oslo, where he conducted the pit orchestra 1899–1929. In the last decade of his life he finished somewhat belatedly three symphonies and two Norwegian rhapsodies in the romantic and nationalistic style of Edvard Grieg and Johan Svendsen.
Halvorsen considered his Norwegian Fairy Tale Pictures to be one of his best works. The suite is colourful and vividly programmatic, drawn from music that Halvorsen had written for a children’s comedy.
Movements four and five are Entry of Trolls into the Blue Mountain and Dance of the Little Trolls. Halvorsen specified that these movements should be played attacca.
The 4th movement illustrates the slow and heavy steps of sluggish adult trolls, whereas the 5th and very last movement is vivacious to show the quicksilver nature of mischievous young troll brats. This movement requires some virtuosity in many sections of the band.
Trolls are central to Norwegian folklore, symbolizing the wild, untamed nature, representing ancient fears, and forming a core part of the nation’s cultural identity, appearing in myths as dangerous, nature-bound creatures, and later in fairy tales as mischievous or dim-witted.
Trolls occur frequently in Norwegian Folktales, collected in the mid-1800s by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, a teacher, and Jørgen Moe, a minister. They were inspired by the work of German folktale collectors, the Grimm Brothers.
Halvorsen arranged the suite for large orchestra and had it printed in 1923. However, the wind band version has been arranged from pit orchestra manuscript parts now in the Norwegian National Library.
The sound clip is computer generated using sampled sounds (AI). Transcriptions and descriptions are not AI-generated.
Set contains one score and one copy of each part, as download or on paper. Copying allowed by acquiring band for their performances only. Additional copies may be obtained from the J. W. Pepper webshop.
The suite consists of: I. Peik, The Princess, and The Giant Troll | More II. Dance of the Troll Maidens | More III. The Princess Riding on the Bear | More IV. Entry of Trolls into the Blue Mountain | More V. Dance of the Little Trolls
Johan Halvorsen (1864–1935) was a Norwegian composer and violinist. His best-known works today are Entry of the Boyars and Bergensiana (variations on the hymn of the city of Bergen), along with his Passacaglia and Sarabande (duos for violin and viola based on themes by George Frideric Handel).
