Classical Music / Composer's Datebook: July 8
As a Composer and Music Educator
Brief biography of Australian-born
American Percy Aldridge Grainger, prolific composer, music educator, virtuoso
pianist, innovator, and facilitator for languages.
(George) Percy Aldridge Grainger (b. Brighton, Melbourne, July 8, 1882- d. White Plains, New York, February 20, 1961), American composer of Australian descent, he was a virtuoso pianist, music educator, and a designer and facilitator of languages. of Australian origin. He was a prolific composer and a virtuoso pianist with an international reputation. He is
remembered as Australia's greatest composer. In England he is considered an important figure in the preservation and arrangement of English folk song, and in the United States, where he lived most of his life, he is highly regarded as a music educator, composer and arranger of band music.
Grainger's genius encompassed an extraordinary facility for languages, a strong talent for design and an innovative approach to museology. The evidence of his creative life - his thoughts, compositions, recordings, archive and eclectic collection of artifacts - forms the Grainger Collection at the University of Melbourne.
Grainger pioneered work in electronic music around 1937 and noted for his “free music” works, but he was more known as an outstanding pianist and interpreter of Edvard Grieg's music, the Norwegian composer. His major works include: The Warriors, "Irish Tune from County Derry" and "Molly on the Shore."
Percy Aldridge Grainger (1882-1961) was born in Melbourne, Australia. He received his first piano lessons from his mother. In later years he left for Europe to study at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt where he became close friends with Busoni, and then Grieg and Delius.
The American Music Teacher and Conductor
Grainger Museum of Australian Music in Melbourne
Despite busy schedules in the U.S., he still visited Australia several times, helping the establishment of the Grainger Museum of Australian Music in Melbourne which he founded in 1935. Some of his manuscripts and other memorabilia are preserved there.
He settled in London in 1901 and started his career as a concert pianist, and then left for the USA, becoming an American citizen in 1918, aged 36, although he's probably considered the greatest Australian composer. He taught in Chicago and New York. In his mid-40s, he married Swedish painter and poet Ella Strom during a Hollywood Bowl concert and on that occasion, he conducted his To a Nordic Princess, which he dedicated to his wife.
Grainger Museum of Australian Music in Melbourne
Despite busy schedules in the U.S., he still visited Australia several times, helping the establishment of the Grainger Museum of Australian Music in Melbourne which he founded in 1935. Some of his manuscripts and other memorabilia are preserved there.
The Concert Pianist and Experimental Composer
He was an experimental composer and pianist remembered for piano transcriptions, for his piano arrangements of folk songs such as Irish Tune from County Derry inspired by Londonderry Air (which dates back to 1855), Molly on the Shore (1921), and instrumental pieces drawing on folk idioms, including Country Gardens, Green Bushes, and Shepherds' Hey.
Grainger was known to be eccentric in private life and as a performer. During the next decade he appeared widely as a concert pianist.
Suggested listening pleasure:
Country Gardens, performed by Hastings College Wind Ensemble. Uploaded by Nimbus Records TV. Accessed July 8, 2015.
Grainger Irish Tune from County Dairy (arranged). Performed by "The President's Own" U.S. Marine Band - Tour 2018. YouTube, Uploaded by U.S. Marine Band. Accessed July 8, 2020.
Folk Song Movement
Grainger also took part in the folk song movement, collecting and arranging numerous songs, by using the gramophone to record harmonic variations. He shared his friend Busoni’s vision of this “free music”, devising a synthesizer and composing machine far ahead of its time.
Resources:
Note: This abridged article was originally published in full for Suite101.com (now close), February 24, 2008.
(c) July 2008. Updated July 8, 2020. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.
Grainger, George Percy (1882-1961). Australian Dictionary of Biography.
Grainger Museum. About the Grainger Museum (To get access, you may need to register to Univ of Melbourne's website): http://www.lib.unimelb.edu.au/collections/grainger/museum/
Percy Grainger Biography. www.britannica.com.
Note: This abridged article was originally published in full for Suite101.com (now close), February 24, 2008.
(c) July 2008. Updated July 8, 2020. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.
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