In the Hall of the Mountain King: the theme in Tonic Solfa
In the Hall of the Mountain King, the theme, in Tonic Solfa (doh is D): the solfa, staff notation and a piano to sing along with.
Download the solfa (PDF)A4, free to print and share with your choir
- Key
- B minor
- Doh
- D
- Time
- 4/4
- Starts on
- l, (B)
- Range
- l, to d' (B to D, a tenth)
- Music
- Edvard Grieg
- Also called
- I Dovregubbens hall, In der Halle des Bergkönigs
Tune In the Hall of the Mountain King by Edvard Grieg (1843–1907). Sources and licences.
The solfa
| l,t,drmdm- | mat,ma-rta,r- |
| l,t,drmdml | smdms--- |
| l,t,drmdm- | mat,ma-rta,r- |
| l,t,drmdml | smdms--- |
| mfeseltset- | d'sed'-tset- |
| mfeseltset- | d'sed'-t--- |
| mfeseltset- | d'sed'-tset- |
| mfeseltset- | d'sed'-t--- |
| l,t,drmdm- | mat,ma-rta,r- |
| l,t,drmdml | smdms--- |
| l,t,drmdm- | mat,ma-rta,r- |
| l,t,drmdml | smdms--- |
The solfa line by line
The same solfa as plain text, easy to copy into your own notes or a WhatsApp message to the choir. To print it, download the solfa as a PDF.
Doh is D · 4/4
Staff notation
The melody on the treble staff in B minor.
The staff is drawn here when you scroll to it.
About the tune
Edvard Grieg wrote In the Hall of the Mountain King in 1875 for Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt, where the trolls of the mountain close in on Peer, and later made it the last movement of his first Peer Gynt Suite (Op. 46, published in 1888). The same theme comes round again and again, louder and faster each time.
This is the theme as Grieg's own piano version gives it, read note for note from the Mutopia Project's public-domain typesetting: the tune in B minor twice, its answer on F sharp twice, then the B minor tune twice more. The piano moves it from octave to octave; here it sits in one singing range, the tune from the B below middle C and the answer from the F sharp a fifth above. The staccato and accents of the score are left out.
- Music (1875), for Ibsen's Peer Gynt: Edvard Grieg (1843–1907)
New to solfa? Read how to read Tonic Solfa and how to find the doh of a song.
Questions about In the Hall of the Mountain King
What is the doh of In the Hall of the Mountain King?
In this version, in B minor, doh is D. If your choir sings it in another key, doh moves to the new key note and every solfa syllable stays the same — that is what movable doh means.
What note does In the Hall of the Mountain King start on?
It starts on l, (B in B minor). Find doh first, then sing up or down to l,.
Is In the Hall of the Mountain King in the public domain?
Yes. Edvard Grieg died in 1907; the tune was first published in 1888. Everyone named died before 1955 and it was published before 1929, so the tune is out of copyright in Nigeria, the UK, the EU and the United States. Modern arrangements of it can still be under copyright.