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.
In the first movement, Peik, the Princess and the Giant Troll, clarinets portray the fairy tale hero, a boy named Peik; flutes play the part of the abducted princess; while the villainous troll is represented by a scary motif in the bass.
The giant troll tries to conquer the princess and make her his own. But Peik puts up a fight (at rehearsal mark K, the most difficult part of the piece). In the end, the troll has to surrender, because trolls are always much too slow-witted and slow-moving despite their intimidating size.
Being the victorious hero, Peik is allowed to marry the princess. Should he not have rescued her, she would surely have disappeared into the Blue Mountain, were trolls use to live.
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.
Front page of the score shows a picture from Troll 2, which at the time of publication was the most viewed non-English language Netflix movie globally, ranking first in 59 countries, including Argentina, France, Norway, Thailand and South Africa.
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 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 | More
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).
