{"id":742,"date":"2022-07-05T19:21:49","date_gmt":"2022-07-05T09:21:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.icemoonprison.com\/blog\/?p=742"},"modified":"2022-07-05T19:32:10","modified_gmt":"2022-07-05T09:32:10","slug":"peer-gynt-quilt-part-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.icemoonprison.com\/blog\/archives\/742","title":{"rendered":"Peer Gynt quilt, Part 4"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Number four! The home straight. While I was working on the<\/a> first<\/a> three<\/a> Peer Gynt quilts, I was contemplating and tweaking the quilt design for the fourth movement of the Peer Gynt Suite 1<\/a>, In the Hall of the Mountain King<\/em><\/a>. This movement is one of the most well-known pieces of classical music and easily evokes a mental image. This is mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Structure and symbology<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the Hall of the Mountain Kin<\/em>g consists of three stanzas of 24 bars, each stanza essentially a repeat of the themes A<\/em> A<\/em> B<\/em> B<\/em> A<\/em> A\u2032<\/em>. The A<\/em> theme is four bars long in B minor, and the B<\/em> theme is four bars long in F\u266f major. The stanzas become successively louder and faster:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stanza<\/strong><\/td>Instruments<\/strong><\/td>Dynamics<\/strong><\/td>Tempo<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
1<\/td>Cello, Bassoon<\/td>pp<\/td>64 bpm<\/td><\/tr>
2<\/td>Strings (pizzicato), Woodwinds<\/td>mf<\/td>80 bpm<\/td><\/tr>
3<\/td>Strings (arco), Brass<\/td>ff<\/td>106 bpm<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>
The frenetic acceleration<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After the third stanza is a short coda of orchestral stabs interrupted by a variation of the A<\/em> theme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Ibsen play that Grieg’s suite was written to accompany, this movement narrates Peer Gynt’s hallucinatory procession through the underground palace of the troll king, culminating in him standing in front of the Mountain King’s throne. I didn’t know this when I first heard the piece; I’d always imagined it as chase music: Peer Gynt is creeping along tunnels undetected, then he moves quickly to keep ahead of followers, then he is running hell-for-leather to escape the hordes that pursue him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Design<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

First, a recap of the axioms I developed while making these quilts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Quilt axioms:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. One tessellating shape per bar.<\/li>
  2. One colour per chord.<\/li>
  3. Keep similar parts near each other.<\/li>
  4. Not much empty space inside.<\/li>
  5. Adjacent bars in adjacent shapes.<\/li>
  6. Everything has to come from my fabric stash.<\/li><\/ol>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

    In this quilt I would borrow inspiration from all of my previous quilts, and even from Anne Adams’s Unraveling Bol\u00e9ro<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n