Percy Aldridge Grainger was born in Melbourne, Australia on July 8,
1882. After receiving some piano instruction from his mother he was sent
to Germany in his twelfth year to continue his music study with James
Kwast and Ferruccio Busoni. In 1900 he made his debut as concert pianist
in London, following which he made an extended tour of Great Britain,
New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa. A meeting with Grieg, in 1906,
was a significant influence in Grainger’s artistic development. Grieg
infected the young man with some of his own enthusiasm for folk music.
The result was that Grainger now began to devote himself to research in
the English folk music of the past. His orchestral and piano
arrangements of many of these folk tunes and dances, between 1908 and
1912, were responsible for bringing them to the attention of the music
world. In 1915, Grainger made his debut as pianist in the United States.
He has lived in America since that time, devoting himself to concert
work, lecturing and teaching, besides composition. Grainger died in
White Plains, New York, on February 20, 1961.
In his own music, Grainger reveals the impact that his studies in
English music made upon him: in his partiality to modal writing, to the
contrapuntal technique, to placid lyricism. But it is in his fresh
arrangements of old English songs and dances that Grainger is most
famous. “Even when he keeps the folk songs within their original
dimensions,” says Cyril Scott, “he has a way of dealing with them which
is entirely new, yet at the same time never lacking in taste.”
_Brigg Fair_ is a plaintive melody of pastoral character from the
district of Lincolnshire. It was used by the contemporary British
composer, Frederick Delius, as the basis for his orchestral rhapsody of
the same name (dedicated to Grainger).
The bucolic and ever popular _Country Gardens_ is a “Mock Morris,” the
“Mock Morris” being an old English dance popular during the reign of
Henry VII and since then associated with festivities attending May Day.
Grainger’s original transcription was for piano solo, and only later did
he adapt it for orchestra.
_Handel in the Strand_ is a lively clog dance. _Irish Tune from County
Derry_ is better known as the _Londonderry Air_, a poignant melody now
known to us through numerous versions other than that originally made
famous by Grainger. The piece, designated as a Mock Morris, is one of a
series in a collection entitled _Room Music Tit Bits_. “No folk music
tune-stuffs at all are used herein,” says the composer. “The rhythmic
cast of the piece is Morris-like, but neither the build of the tunes nor
the general layout of the form keeps to the Morris dance shape.”
The lively _Molly on the Shore_ was first written for piano before being
adapted by the composer for orchestra. _Shepherd’s Hey_ is a Mock Morris
and consists of four tunes, two fiddle tunes and two folk songs.
Of Grainger’s own compositions three are of general interest. The
_Children’s March_ (1917) was written during World War I for the United
States Army Band. “This march,” says the composer, “is structurally of a
complicated build, on account of the large number of different themes
and tunes employed and of the varied and irregular interplay of many
contrasted sections. Tonally speaking, it is a study in the blend of
piano, wind, and percussion instruments.”
_Passacaglia on Green Bushes_ has two versions. One is for small
orchestra, and the other for a large one. This composition is built
around the folk melody “Green Bushes” which remains unchanged in key,
line, and rhythm throughout the work (except for eight measures of free
passage work near the beginning, and forty measures at the end). Against
this melody move several folk-like melodies of Grainger’s own invention.
_Youthful Suite_ for orchestra is made up of five sections. Part of this
work was completed in 1902, and part in 1945. The first movement,
“Northern March,” derives its character from the melodic and rhythmic
traits of the folk music of North England and Scotland. The main melody
here acquires its folk-song character through the use of the
flat-seventh minor scale. “Rustic Dance” achieves an exotic quality
through the employment of an unusual variant of the F major chord.
“Norse Digger” is a somber lament in which is mourned the passing of a
dead hero, possibly from an Icelandic saga. “Eastern Intermezzo” has an
Oriental cast. The repeated use of drum beats and the virile rhythms
were inspired by a reading of a description of the dance of the
elephants in _Toomal of the Elephants_ from Kipling’s Jungle Book. This
suite ends with a formal “English Waltz.”