On returning to his mother’s hut in his native village, after these and many other adventures, Peer finds her on her death-bed, and remains with her through the night, during which she passes away, enlivening her last hours with the most preposterous tales and pantomimes. This scene of the drama, in spite of its solemnity and sadness, carries the fantastic to the extreme verge of the grotesque.

The illustrative music is cast in the mold of a “funeral march,” without trio and with but one well-developed theme. In it Grieg has emphasized only the somber and tragical aspect of the situation, ignoring entirely its touches of ghastly humor. The utter and crushing despair of a wrecked and disappointed life, of shattered hopes and unrequited and unappreciated maternal affection, sobs through its strains, enhancing the pangs of approaching dissolution. Its mood is that of unqualified gloom, unrelieved by a single vibration of hope or consolation.