Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46: In the Hall of the Mountain King

What Grieg understood about suspense, he demonstrated completely here. The piece begins almost inaudibly — pizzicato strings and low woodwinds marking out a simple, almost childlike melody at a tempo barely above stasis, so soft you have to lean in to hear it. Then it begins to accelerate. Instruments are added one by one: first bassoon, then cello, then more strings, the texture thickening and the tempo incrementally increasing with each repetition of that same elemental theme. By the final third the entire orchestra is charging forward at full speed and near-maximum volume, the original gentle tune transformed into something overwhelming and slightly out of control. It is a masterclass in a single musical idea: repetition as accumulation, accumulation as dread. Grieg based this on a scene from Ibsen's play where the protagonist enters the mountain hall of the troll king, and the music captures that encounter — something vast and strange and not entirely friendly revealing itself slowly from darkness. Children respond to it instinctively; it taps into something pre-rational, the oldest circuitry of the nervous system that tracks approaching danger. For all its familiarity (it has been used for everything from Bugs Bunny to EDM remixes), played at full orchestral volume in a concert hall it retains the power to make your pulse rate change without your consent.