Morning Mood

Learn this piece

Composer

Edvard Grieg

Arrangement

Edvard Grieg

Level

Advanced

Key

E major

Metre

6/8

Tempo

90 BPM

Length

87 bars, about 3 minutes

Hands

both

Orchestra

Flute, Oboe, Horns, Strings and Cellos

Trains

Grieg's own piano version of the sunrise from Peer Gynt: a pastoral 6/8 melody passed between the hands over held chords and wide left-hand chords, the tenths rolled, the forte climax in full chords, the left-hand melody under right-hand figuration, trills with their endings, and the quiet return over a pedal note.

How to practise it

• Bars 1-4 give the tune high in the right hand, and bars 5-8 repeat it an octave lower. Play it p and dolce, and keep the grace notes in bars 2-3 and 6-7 light.
• From bar 21 the tune comes back forte in octaves. Loop bars 21-22 at 45 BPM so both notes of each octave sound together and the grace notes stay quick.
• In bars 50-53 the tune is in your left hand, pp, under the right hand's 16ths. Practise the left hand alone first and let it sing through the right hand.
• Bars 68-69 bring trills on B with two grace notes to end each one. Practise them slowly and keep the left hand's short chords steady under them.

Where this score came from

Licence: Public domain

https://archive.org/details/31761045200615

Credit: G. Schirmer, New York, 1899: First and Second Orchestra Suites from the Music to Peer Gynt, arranged for pianoforte by the composer; Morgenstimmung edited and fingered by Louis Oesterle (Internet Archive 31761045200615).

Limitations: written pedal is not played

Other versions

• Morning Mood (easier chords) Advanced

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• Prelude in C minor, Op. 28 No. 20 Frédéric Chopin
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