COMPOSER READING
Meet Edvard Grieg
Use a composer reading as a bridge between literacy and listening. This starter introduces Grieg and asks students to connect musical changes with a story they imagine.
Customize this worksheet ↗ORIGINAL SAMPLE READING · GRADES 4–5
Meet Edvard Grieg
Edvard Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist. Folk music from Norway helped shape his musical style. He wrote works for piano, songs for singers, and music for orchestras.
Grieg also composed music for Henrik Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt. This kind of music is called incidental music: it supports the action and mood of a play. “In the Hall of the Mountain King” is one of the best-known pieces from that music. It begins quietly and grows faster and louder. Those changes help the music create suspense.
A composer can tell a story without using words. As you listen to Grieg’s music, think about how tempo, dynamics, and repeated musical ideas affect what you imagine.
Biography reference: Kode / Edvard Grieg Museum. This reading and its teaching prompts are original Music Paper Maker text.
A simple way to teach it
- Read the passage together or independently. For younger students, read aloud and explain “composer.”
- Choose a recording of “In the Hall of the Mountain King.” Listen once without writing, then again with one focus: changes in speed or loudness.
- Ask students to distinguish a fact from the passage from a detail they heard in the recording.
Take it a little further
Have students tell the same imaginary story twice: once with a quiet beginning and once with a loud beginning. Discuss how the musical choice changes the scene.
Open the starter, choose the grade band, then check the reading level and answer space for your class. Each printed page is US Letter. Choose 100% print scale and turn off browser headers and footers.
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