(b Brighton, Victoria, 8 July 1882; d White Plains, NY, 20 Feb 1961). Australian-American composer, pianist and folksong collector. Best known for his settings of British folk music, he was also an innovative composer of original works and ‘free music’, and an accomplished performer.
MALCOLM GILLIES, DAVID PEAR
Grainger spent the first 13 years of his life in Melbourne, where he was educated at home under the guidance of his mother, Rose. She instilled in him a love of the arts and an heroic outlook on life, reinforced by his study of Classical legends and Icelandic sagas. He also received occasional tutorials in languages, art, drama, elocution and the piano (with Louis Pabst, 1892–4). Following his Melbourne début as a pianist in 1894, funds were raised to support further musical training in Frankfurt, where he studied at the Hoch Conservatory (1895–1901) with James Kwast (piano), Iwan Knorr (composition, theory) and others. There he formed lifelong friendships with Cyril Scott, Henry Balfour Gardiner and Roger Quilter, who, with Norman O'Neill, became known as the Frankfurt Group. During these years he was strongly influenced by the writings of Rudyard Kipling (he would compose many Kipling settings, 1898–1956) and Walt Whitman, whose poetry greatly affected his attitude to life.
From 1901 to 1914 Grainger was based in London, where he slowly established a career as a concert pianist and private teacher. After a brief period of study in Berlin with Busoni, he toured Australasia with the contralto Ada Crossley (1903–4), returning for a second trip five years later. During this period, he also collected, transcribed and arranged English folksongs, and was one of the earliest collectors to use the phonograph (from 1906). He came to know Grieg and Delius personally, composers whose music he championed for the rest of his life. Although he composed major works, such as the Hill-Songs nos.1 and 2 (1901–7), Grainger did not promote himself as a composer until his reputation as a pianist was secure. Schott began to publish his works in 1911 and the first public concert devoted entirely to his music took place in London in 1912. Highly popular works of the pre-war years included Molly on the Shore (1907), Shepherd's Hey (1908–13) and Handel in the Strand (1911–12). The Warriors, ‘music to an imaginary ballet', was written between 1913 and 1916.
With the onset of war, Grainger moved to the USA where he rapidly transcended his London status both as a pianist and as a composer. He entered into lucrative contracts with the Duo-Art Company for piano rolls and with Columbia for gramophone recordings, and settled on G. Schirmer as his American publisher. From 1917 to 1919 he served in the US Army, first playing the oboe and soprano saxophone and later working as a band instructor. Country Gardens, a piano setting of a Morris dance tune, was completed during his Army years; it became his best-known composition soon after its publication in 1919.
The highly publicized suicide of his mother, who leapt to her death from a New York skyscraper in April 1922, caused Grainger to re-evaluate his life. For a number of years he eschewed a year-round concert career and sought, during repeated visits to Europe and Australia, to rekindle the passions and friendships of his earlier life. On several Danish trips, he collected folksongs with the ethnologist Evald Tang Kristensen, to whom he dedicated his Danish Folk-Music Suite in 1928. In 1926, while aboard ship crossing the Pacific, he met the Swede Ella Ström, whom he married two years later during a Hollywood Bowl concert featuring the première of his To a Nordic Princess (1927–8).
During the 1930s Grainger increasingly assumed the role of educator. His growing interest in amateur performances led to a greater involvement with school, college and community ensembles, for which he scored his own music and that of his friends. After attending the Haslemere Festival of 1931, he became a firm promoter of early music; while chair of the music department at New York University (1932–3), he presented broad-ranging lectures on ‘The Manifold Nature of Music', which became the basis of 12 Australian radio lectures entitled ‘Music: a Commonsense View of All Types’ (1934–5). His frequent work with bands culminated in his setting of Lincolnshire Posy (1937), a work which he described as a ‘bunch of musical wildflowers'.
During World War II, Grainger relaunched his career as a solo pianist, frequently trading his pianistic services for the opportunity to perform his own works. Although he gave his last American concert tour in 1948, he continued to lecture and perform, mainly in schools and colleges, until 1960. His last decade was blighted by cancer and personal frustration, despite his experiments with ‘free music'.
On 7 October 1911 Grainger wrote to his mother, ‘I hardly ever think of ought else but sex, race, athletics, speech and art'. These five areas were the foundation of Grainger's self-defined ‘all-roundedness'. He rejected all prudish attitudes to sex, privately practised flagellation and sought to maintain his own ‘sexual fury' into old age. Even in childhood, he lamented the Norman contamination of Anglo-Saxon British stock; from the 1920s he became an increasingly strident advocate of Nordic racial (and artistic) superiority and of milder theories of eugenics. His athleticism was popularized through many long hikes and on-stage antics, as well as through his avowedly muscular approach to piano technique. A consequence of his racial beliefs was his love of northern European languages – in particular, Danish, Swedish and Icelandic – and a desire to purge English of Mediterranean, particularly Latin, influences through the creation of a pure ‘blue-eyed', or ‘Nordic' English.
In the artistic domain, Grainger was particularly critical of a growing mania for specialization and ‘skill-mongering' at the expense of such ennobling all-roundedness as he recognized in his Frankfurt colleague Cyril Scott, the early-music pioneer Arnold Dolmetsch, the Australian artist Norman Lindsay and the American librarian Carl Engel. Grainger saw his own lifelong search for a music free from snobbish classifications as part of the ‘fearless all-embracingness of science'. In 1938 he commented that the art of music had not yet grown up and likened its contemporary condition to Egyptian bas-reliefs, in which only regularized shapes are found; for him, the condition of ‘free music' paralleled Greek sculpture, in which ‘all aspects and attitudes of the human body could be shown in arrested movement'.
Grainger's compositional output is extensive, consisting of two kinds of works: original compositions and folk music settings. He was also responsible for many arrangements, transcriptions, paraphrases and editions of music by other composers. Most of his works, whether original or settings, are small scale, lasting between two and eight minutes. Even his larger suites, such as In a Nutshell (1916) and Danish Folk-Music Suite (1928–41), are collections of relatively short pieces; The Warriors (1913–16) is alone in nearing 20 minutes of continuous music. Few of Grainger's works were originally written for the piano; in the vast number of his subsequent arrangements, however, (‘dish-ups') for piano versions are common.
Grainger characterized music primarily by texture and style, finding concepts of structure, form and development inherently unmusical. He described his own music variously as of smooth, ‘grained' and ‘prickly' textures and sought sameness rather than contrast within individual works. Some of his most subtle textural generation is found in his mature music for band. Stylistically he professed to aim at a ‘half-horizontal, half-perpendicular polyphonic chord-style', featuring mildly clashing harmonies as a result of freely moving part-writing. Many of his works possess a vitality arising from his ‘jogging', almost Baroque, sense of rhythm and from a plasticity created by his late-Romantic sense of independent parts.
Although he sustained his career through the ‘potboilers' of his folk music settings, Grainger held the deeper aim of pioneering a ‘free music'. The wave movements he observed in a Melbourne lake acted as an early stimulus for his ideal of tonal freedom. His inclination for rhythmic freedom was heightened by his analysis of speech rhythms while in Frankfurt, a study that led to the Love Verses from The Song of Solomon (1899–1901). A multiplicity of rhythms feature in Train Music (1900–01), while the essentially unperformable sketch for Sea-Song (1907) represents an early exploration of ‘beatless music'. In Random Round (1912–14) he experimented with ‘concerted partial improvisation', under the inspiration of the communal music-making of South Sea Islanders.
Underpinning Grainger's musical aspirations was a conception of music as a democratic art in which all citizens had an equal right, and even a duty, to participate. His ‘elastic scoring', developed during the 1920s, was based on a small number of versatile ‘tone strands', rather than the many idiosyncratic lines for pre-set combinations of instruments found in most orchestral and band music. ‘Elastic scoring' allowed for almost all available instruments to be used, provided players were assigned parts with an ear to the blending characteristics of their instruments. Such democratized music, however, was as Grainger explained in 1931, ‘only a halfway house on the road to “free music”'.
While the freeing of rhythmic, harmonic and formal relations could largely be realized with traditional instruments, advances in pitch freedom, specifically ‘gliding tones’, could not be so easily achieved on wind, brass and keyboard instruments because of their pre-set intervals. Hence, in early 1935, Grainger completed his first experiment with ‘gliding' music, Free Music no.1, for string quartet. He believed, however, that for music to be completely ‘free' it needed to be released from the ‘tyranny of the performer', and, in partial achievement of this aim, he rescored Free Music no.1 (1935–7) and wrote Free Music no.2 (1935–7) for four and six theremins, respectively.
From 1945, in collaboration with Burnett Cross, Grainger worked towards the elimination of all aspects of human intervention in performance by developing several ‘free music' machines (Estey-Reed Tone-Tool, 1950–51; Kangaroo-Pouch Tone-Tool, 1952; Electric-Eye Tone-Tool, unfinished). Grainger looked upon these machines as primitive aids in testing the malleable sounds he had heard in his head since childhood, sounds he likened to William Hogarth's ‘curves of beauty'. See Cross-Grainger free music machine.
Grainger influenced the concept, rather than the specific style, of a distinctively Australian music. His vision, analogous to the monotonous national landscape and true to the country's Asian-Pacific location, was particularly refreshing to the generation of Australian composers which emerged in the 1960s. His consummate skill in setting folk music influenced succeeding generations of British composers, including Britten, who recognized Grainger as his ‘master' in this regard. Grainger's innovations in scoring and instrumental balance have a vibrant legacy in American band music written after 1940. His attempts at ‘free music' did not exert a profound influence over other composers, at least not directly, as they were quickly overtaken by the massive technological advances that occurred in electronic sound synthesis during the 1950s and 60s.
As a performer, Grainger stands as one of the 20th century's more colourful exponents of ‘muscular' piano playing, and is most distinctive for his stark differentiation of ‘tone strengths' and subtleties of pedalling. His educational legacy has been more enduring. Although he did not found a distinctive school of performance or beget particularly famous students, his impact was keenly felt by the many American high-school, summer-school and college students with whom he shared his music over a 40-year period.
Grainger's scholarly legacy has fluctuated since his death. After establishing his own museum at the University of Melbourne (1935–8), he stocked it well with his own curios and those of his artistic set. The museum, however, gained little attention until the mid-1970s. Although the racial, nationalistic and personal purposes for which it was founded are now frequently deemed eccentric, if not repugnant, Grainger's ‘Past-Hoard-House' has, along with the Percy Grainger Library (White Plains, New York), proven to be of enduring value. Its vast collections of his music and writings have inspired published volumes of his correspondence and essays, propagation of his less accessible scores and interest in his early ethnological work, and have helped to foster recordings of his works, as well as documentaries and films. As early as a letter of 16 June 1917, Grainger speculated as to his ultimate legacy: ‘My music expresses only certain sides, in any event, and I almost think that my emotional life and the life of my thoughts have more to say than my artistic life, and will, in the future, be regarded as being of the same, or greater, significance'.
includes published works, and works for which publishing rights have been allocated; see Schott/Bordic catalogue (Anon., 1996).
dates indicate the year(s) in which a work was begun or substantially composed; titles are listed alphabetically (mostly without instrumentation), as Grainger revised and rescored many of his works
for details of various versions, edition dates, sketches and transcriptions see Balough (1975), Dreyfus (1978), Tall (1982), Dreyfus (1995) and anon. (1996)
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AFMS |
American Folk Music Settings (numbered by Grainger) |
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BFMS |
British Folk Music Settings (numbered and unnumbered) |
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DFMS |
Danish Folk Music Settings (numbered and unnumbered) |
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FI |
Faeroe Island Dance Folksong Settings (numbered and unnumbered) |
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FS |
Free Settings of Favourite Melodies (numbered) |
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KS |
Kipling Settings (numbered and unnumbered) |
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OEPM |
Settings of Songs and Tunes from Chappell's Old English Popular Music (numbered and unnumbered) |
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RMTB |
Room-Music Tit-Bits (numbered and unnumbered) |
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S |
Sentimentals (numbered) |
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SCS |
Sea Chanty Settings (numbered and unnumbered) |
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TMRM |
Two Musical Relics of My Mother (numbered) |
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TWFS |
Two Welsh Fighting Songs (numbered) |
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In a Nutshell, orch, perc, pf, 1916: Arrival Platform Humlet [RMTB 7], Gay but Wistful, Pastoral, The ‘Gum-Suckers' March |
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Kipling Jungle Book Cycle, variously mixed chorus, chbr orch, 1898–1947: The Fall of the Stone [KS 16], Morning-Song in the Jungle [KS 3], Night-Song in the Jungle [KS 17], The Inuit [KS 5], The Beaches of Lukannon [KS 20], Red Dog [KS 19], The Peora Hunt [KS 14], Hunting Song of the Seeonee Pack [KS 8], Tiger, Tiger [KS 4], The Only Son [KS 21], Mowgli's Song against People [KS 15] |
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The Warriors, music for an imaginary ballet, 3 pf, orch, 1913–16 |
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Youthful Suite, orch, 1940–45: Northern March, Rustic Dance, Norse Dirge, Eastern Intermezzo, English Waltz |
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After-Word (After-Song), 1910–11; Anchor Song, 1899–1905, 1915–21 [KS 6]; Andante con moto, c1897; Arrival Platform Humlet, 1908–12, 1916 [RMTB 7]; At Twilight (Grainger), 1900–9, 1912–13; Australian Up-Country Song (Tune), 1905, 1928; The Beaches of Lukannon, 1898, 1941 [KS 20]; A Bridal Lullaby (Goodbye to Love), 1916–17; The Bride's Tragedy (Swinburne), 1908–14; Children's March ‘Over the Hills and Far Away', 1916–18 [RMTB 4]; Colonial Song (Up-Country Song), 1905–12 [S 1] |
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The Crew of the Long Serpent (Dragon) (Seascape) (after H.W. Longfellow), 1898; Danny Deever, 1903, 1922–4 [KS 12]; Dedication, 1901 [KS 1]; Dreamery, 1918–19, 1943 [later pt of The Power of Rome and the Christian Heart]; Eastern Intermezzo, 1898–9 [RMTB 5, after R. Kipling]; English Dance, 1899–1909; English Waltz, 1899–1901, 1940–43; The Fall of the Stone, 1901–4 [KS 16]; The First Chanty, 1899–1903 [KS]; Fisher's Boarding House (Orch Piece I), 1899 [after Kipling]; Free Music no.1, 1907, 1935–7; Free Music no.2, 1935–7; Ganges Pilot, 1899 [KS]; Gay but Wistful, 1912–16; The ‘Gum-Suckers' March (Cornstalks' March), 1905–11 |
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Handel in the Strand (Clog Dance), 1911–12 [RMTB 2]; Harlem Walkabout (Harlem Jogging-Tune), 1919; Harvest Hymn (Harvest Time in Sweden), 1905–6, 1932; Hill-Song no.1, 1901–2; Hill-Song no.2, 1901–7; Hunting-Song of the Seeonee Pack, 1899, 1922 [KS 8]; The Immovable Do (The Ciphering C), 1933–9; In Dahomey (Cakewalk Smasher), 1903–9; The Inuit, 1902–7 [KS 5]; King Solomon's Espousals, 1899–1901, 1911; Klavierstück, a, 1898; Klavierstück, B, 1897; Klavierstück, D, 1897; Klavierstück, E, 1897; Kleine Variationen-Form, 1898; The Lads of Wamphray (W. Scott), 1904; Lads of Wamphray March, 1906–7 |
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The Lonely Desert-Man sees the Tents of the Happy Tribes, 1911–14, 1949 [RMTB 9]; The Love Song of Har Dyal, 1901 [KS 11]; Love Verses from The Song of Solomon, 1899–1901, 1911; Lullaby from Tribute to Foster, 1915; Marching Song of Democracy (after W. Whitman), 1901, 1908, 1915–17; The Men of the Sea, 1899 [KS 10]; The Merchantmen, 1902–3, 1909 [KS]; Merciful Town, 1899, [KS]; The Merry Wedding (Bridal Dance) (trad. Faeroese), 1912–15; Mock Morris, 1910 [RMTB 1]; Morning-Song in the Jungle, 1905 [KS 3]; Mowgli's Song against People, 1903 [KS 15] |
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Night-Song in the Jungle, 1898–9 [KS 17]; Norse Dirge, 1899, 1942–5; Northern Ballad, 1898–9 [KS]; Northern March (March), 1899, 1942–5; The Only Song, 1945–7 [KS 21]; Pastoral, 1907–16; Peace and Saxon Twiplay, 1898; The Peora Hunt, 1901–6 [KS 14]; The Power of Rome and the Christian Heart, 1918–43; Pritteling, Pratteling, Pretty Poll Parrot, 1911; Random Round (Join-In-When-You-Like Round), 1912–14 [RMTB 8]; Recessional, 1905, 1929 [KS 18]; Red Dog, 1941 [KS 19]; A Reiver's Neck-Verse (A.C. Swinburne), 1908; Rhyme of the Three Sealers (Away in the Lands of the Japanee; At Twilight), 1900–01 [KS]; Ride with an Idle Whip, 1899 [KS]; The Rival Brothers (Faeroese ballad), 1905, 1931–2 |
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Rondo, 1897; The Running of Shindand, 1901–4 [KS 9]; Rustic Dance, 1899, 1943–5; Sailor's Chanty (A. Conan Doyle), 1901; Sailor's Song, 1900, 1954; Scherzo, 1898; Sea-Song (Grettir the Strong), 1907, 1921–2; The Sea-Wife, 1898, 1905 [KS 22]; The Secret of the Sea (Longfellow), 1898; Soldier, Soldier, 1898–9, 1907–8 [KS 13]; A Song of Autumn (A.L. Gordon), 1899; Thanksgiving Song, 1918–43 [conclusion of The Power of Rome and the Christian Heart]; Theme and Variations, 1898 [incl. Der pfeifender Reiter]; There were Three Friends, 1898–9 [after Kipling]; 3 Burns Songs, 1898: Afton Water; Evan Banks; Yon Wild Mossy Mountains; Tiger, Tiger, 1898, 1905 [KS 4] |
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To a Nordic Princess (Bridal Song), 1927–8; Train Music (Charging Irishry), 1900–01, 1907; Tribute to Foster (S. Foster, Grainger), 1913–16, 1931; The Twa Corbies (The Two Ravens) (W. Scott), 1903; Variations on Handel's The Harmonious Blacksmith, 1911; Walking Tune, 1900–5 [RMTB 3]; We have Fed our Sea for a Thousand Years, 1900–04 [KS 2]; We were Dreamers, 1899 [KS]; When the World was Young, 1910–11; The Widow's Party, 1901, 1906 [KS 7]; The Widow's Party March, 1905–8; The Wraith of Odin (Longfellow), 1903; The Young British Soldier, 1899 [KS]; Youthful Rapture, 1901, 1929 [RMTB]; Zanzibar Boat Song, 1902 [RMTB 6, after Kipling] |
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Danish Folk-Music Suite, variable scorings, 1928–41: The Power of Love [DFMS 2], Lord Peter's Stable-Boy [DFMS 1, 7], The Nightingale and The Two Sisters [DFMS 10], Jutish Melody [DFMS 9] |
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Lincolnshire Posy, band, 1937 [BFMS 34, 35]: Lisbon (Dublin Bay) [BFMS 40]; Harkstow Grange, Rufford Park Poachers, The Brisk Young Sailor, Lord Melbourne, The Lost Lady Found [BFMS 33] |
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La Scandinavie (Scandinavian Suite), vc, pf, 1902: Swedish Air and Dance, A (Swedish) Song of Vermeland, Norwegian Polka, Danish Melody, Air and Finale on Norwegian Dances |
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Songs of the North (Scottish Folksongs), 1900: Willie's Gane to Melville Castle, Weaving Song, Skye Boat Song, This is No My Plaid, Turn ye to Me, Drowned, Fair Young Mary (Mairi Bhan Og), Leezie Lindsay, The Women are a'Gane Wud, My Faithful Fond One (Mo Run Geal Dileas), Bonnie George Campbell, O'er the Moor, O Gin, I were where Gowrie Runs (Gadie Rins), Mo Nighean Dubh [My Dark-Haired Maid] |
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Agincourt Song, 1907; As Sally Sat A-Weeping, 1908–12 [BFMS, TMRM 2]; Bold William Taylor, 1908 [BFMS 43]; Brigg Fair, 1906 [BFMS 7]; The Brisk Young Sailor, 1905–6, 1919, 1937; British Waterside (The Jolly Sailor), 1920 [BFMS 26]; The Camp (Y Gadlys), 1903–4 [BFMS, TWFS 1]; Colleen Dhas (The Valley Lay Smiling), 1904 [DFMS]; Country Gardens, 1908–18 [BFMS 22]; Creepin' Jane, 1920–21 [BFMS]; Dalvisa, 1903–4; David of the White Rock (Dafydd y Garreg Wen), 1954 [BFMS]; Died for Love, 1906–7 [BFMS 10]; Dollar and a Half a Day, 1908–9 [SCS 2]; The Duke of Marlborough Fanfare, 1939 [BFMS 36]; Early One Morning, 1901, 1940 [BFMS] |
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Father and Daughter (Fadir og Dóttir), 1908–9 [FI 1]; The Gipsy's Wedding Day, 1906 [BFMS]; Green Bushes (Passacaglia on an English Folksong), 1905–6 [BFMS 12, 25]; Hard-Hearted Barb'ra (H)ellen, 1899, 1946 [BFMS]; Harkstow Grange, 1934–7; Hermundur Illi (Hermund the Evil), 1905–11 [FI, TMRM 1]; The Hunter in his Career, 1904 [OEPM 3, 4]; Husband and Wife (Manden og Konen), 1923 [DFMS 5]; I'm Seventeen Come Sunday, 1905–6 [BFMS 8]; In Bristol Town (Bristol Town), 1906 [BFMS]; Irish Tune from County Derry (Old Irish Tune; County Derry Air), 1902 [BFMS 5, 6, 15, 20, 29] |
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Jutish Medley (Jysk Sammenpluk), 1923–7 [DFMS 8, 9]; The Keel Row (Smiling Polly), 1901–3; Knight and Shepherd's Daughter, 1918 [BFMS 18, Schott]; The Land o' the Leal, 1901; Let's Dance Gay in Green Meadow (Faeroe Island Dance), 1905, [FI]; Lisbon (Dublin Bay), 1906, 1931, 1937 [BFMS 40]; Lord Maxwell's Goodnight, 1904–13 [BFMS 14, 42]; Lord Melbourne, 1909–12, 1937; Lord Peter's Stable-Boy (Herr Peders Stéalddreng), 1922–7 [DFMS 1, 7]; The Lost Lady Found, 1905–10, 1937 [BFMS 33]; The Maiden and the Frog (Jomfruen og Frøen), 1925 [DFMS] |
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The March of the Men of Harlech, 1903–4 [BFMS, TWFS 2]; Marching Tune, 1905–6 [BFMS 9]; Mary Thomson, 1909–10 [BFMS]; The Merry King, 1905–6, 1936–9 [BFMS 38, 39]; Molly on the Shore, 1907 [BFMS 1, 19, 23]; My Love's in Germanie, 1903 [BFMS]; My Robin is to the Greenwood Gone (A Ramble), 1904–12 [OEPM 2]; Near Woodstock Town, 1899–1903 [BFMS]; The Nightingale and The Two Sisters (Nattergalen og De to Søster), 1923–30 [DFMS 10]; The Old Woman at the Christening (Kjaellingen til Barsel), 1925 [DFMS 11]; O Mistress Mine (after T. Morley), 1903 [OEPM]; One More Day, My John, 1915 [SCS 1] |
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The Power of Love (Kjaerlighedens Styrke), 1922 [DFMS 2, 4]; The Pretty Maid Milkin' her Cow, 1920 [BFMS 27]; The Rag-Time Girl (Amer. popular song), 1900; Rimmer (Rammer) and Goldcastle, 1951 [DFMS 3]; Rufford Park Poachers, 1933–7; Scotch Strathspey and Reel, 1901–11 [BFMS 28, 37]; Shallow Brown, 1910 [SCS 3]; Shenandoah (Windlass Chanty), 1907 [SCS]; Shepherd's Hey, 1908–13 [BFMS 3, 4, 16, 21]; The Shoemaker from Jerusalem (Jerusalems Skomager), 1927–9 [DFMS 6]; Sir Eglamore, 1904 [BFMS 13]; Six Dukes went a-Fishin', 1905, 1910–12 [BFMS 11]; Spoon River, 1919–22 [AFMS 1, 2, 3] |
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The Sprig of Thyme, 1907, 1920 [BFMS 24]; Stalt Vesselil (Proud Vesselil), 1951 [DFMS]; Stormy (Pumping Chanty), 1907 [SCS]; The Sussex Mummers' Christmas Carol, 1905–11 [BFMS 2, 17]; There was a Pig went Out to Dig (Christmas Day in the Morning), 1905 [BFMS 18, Schirmer]; The Three Ravens, 1902–3 [BFMS 41]; 3 Scottish (Scotch) Folk Songs, 1900: Leezie Lindsay; Mo Nighean Dubh [My Dark-Haired Maid]; O Gin, I were where Gadie Rins [BFMS, from Songs of the North]; Under a Bridge (Under en Bro), 1945–6 [DFMS 12]; Willow Willow, 1898–1911 [OEPM 1]; Ye Banks & Braes o'Bonnie Doon (R. Burns), 1901 [BFMS 30, 31, 32] |
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Chosen Gems, variously 1v, str, 1930–57 [arrs. and edns of 14th–17th-century music]: A. de Cabezón: Prelude in the Dorian Mode; N. Curtis-Burlin: Negro Lullaby; Josquin: A l'heure que je vous; Josquin: La bernardina; Dufay: Le jour s'endort; A. Ferrabosco: The 4-Note Pavan; H. Finck: O schönes Weib; J. Japart: Nenciozza mia; J. Jenkins: 5-Pt Fantasy; W. Lawes: 6-Pt Fantasy and Air no.1; Machaut: Ballade no.17; Machaut: Rondeau no.14; D. Pisador: Paséabase, The Moorish King; L. Power: Anima mea liquefacta est; H. Sandby: Love Song; A. Scarlatti: The Quiet Brook; J. Stokem: Harraytre amours |
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Chosen Gems, variously wind, brass, 1937–53 [arrs. and edns of 13th–18th-century music]: Angelus ad Virginem; Bach: March; Bach: Prelude and Fugue; A. de Cabezón: Prelude in the Dorian Mode; Josquin: La bernardina; Josquin: Royal Fanfare; A. Ferrabosco: The 4-Pt Pavan; W. Lawes: 6-Pt Fantasy and Air no.1; Machaut: Ballade no.17; A. Scarlatti: The Quiet Brook; A. Willaert: O salutaris hostia |
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Concert Transcrs. of Favourite Concs., pf, 1942–6: Tchaikovsky: Pf Conc. no.1 [opening], Grieg: Pf Conc. [first movt], Rachmaninoff: Pf Conc. no.2 [third movt]; Schumann: Pf Conc. [first movt] |
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The Dolmetsch Collection of English Consorts (1944) [transcrs. by A. Dolmetsch, edn for modern str insts by Grainger]: A. Ferrabosco: The 4-Note Pavan; J. Jenkins: 5-Pt Fantasy; W. Lawes: 6-Pt Fantasy and Air no.1 |
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English Gothic Music, 1933–50s [transcrs. by D.A. Hughes, edns for ‘practical perf.' by Grainger]: Ad cantum laetitiae; Alleluia psallat; Angelus ad Virginem; Beata viscera; Credo [from Old Hall MS]; Edi beo thu; Foweles in the Frith; Fulget coelestis curai; Hac in anni Janua; Jubilemus omnes una; Marionette douce; Dunstaple: O rosa bella; L. Power: Sanctus; Princesse of Youth; Pro beati Pauli – O praeclara patriae; Puellare gremium; Dunstaple: Veni sancte spiritus; Worcester Sanctus |
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Free Settings of Favourite Melodies, pf, 1922–42: Brahms: Wiegenlied [FS 1]; Handel: Hornpipe [FS 2]; Fauré: Nell [FS 3]; R. Strauss: Ramble on Love [FS 4]; Dowland: Now, O Now, I Needs Must Part [FS 5, 6]; Fauré: Après un rêve [FS 7], Tchaikovsky: Pf Conc. no.1 [opening] [FS 8] |
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Many other edns/arrs., incl. works by: Addinsell, Bach, Balakirev, Brade, Brahms, Brockway, O. Bull, Byrd, K. Cheatham, Coprario, Corteccia, N. Curtis-Burlin, Debussy, R. Dering, Delius, M. Easte, Elgar, Fauré, A. Ferrabosco, H.B. Gardiner, Gershwin, E. Goossens, E. Grainger, Grieg, J. Jenkins, C. le Jeune, Liszt, D.G. Mason, H. Mohr, S. Olsen, K. Parker, M. Pierson, Ravel, Sandby, F. Schmitt, C. Scott, Stanford, Tchaikovsky, Tomkins, Weelkes and others |
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Arrs. of African, British, Chinese, Indonesian and Polynesian music |
‘Collecting with the Phonograph’, JFSS, iii (1908–9), 147–242
‘The Music of Cyril Scott’, Music Student, v/2 (1912), 31–3
‘The Impress of Personality in Unwritten Music’, MQ, i (1915), 416–35
‘Modern and Universal Impulses in Music’, The Etude, xxxiv (1916), 343–4
‘Richard Strauss: Seer and Idealist’, in H.T. Finck: Richard Strauss (Boston, 1917), xvii–xxv
‘Freedom of Thought in Piano Study’, in H. Brower: Piano Mastery: Second Series (New York, 1917), 1–17
‘The Two-Fold Vitality of Anglo-Saxon Music’, The Etude, xxxvii (1918), 81–2
‘Let us Sit in Wait No Longer for the Advent of Great American Composers; They are With us Already’, Quarter-Notes of the Brooklyn Music School Settlement, i/1 (1919), 1–3
‘Grieg's “Norwegian Bridal Procession”,’ The Etude, xxxviii (1920), 741–5
ed.: Photos of Rose Grainger and of Three Short Accounts of her Life by Herself in her own Handwriting (New York, 1923)
‘Percy Grainger's Fighting Creed’, Australian Musical News, xiv/3 (1924), 17–18
‘Jazz and the Music of the Future’, Great Men and Famous Musicians, ed. J.F. Cooke (Philadelphia, 1925), 308–14
‘Der Ergänzung der Schlagwerkgruppe im Orchester’, Pult und Taktstock, iii (1926), 5–9
‘Impressions of Art in Europe’, Musical Courier, xcviii (1929), no.22, p.8 only; no.25, p.6 only; xcix (1929), no.1, p.8 only; no.13, pp.8, 31; no.17, pp.10, 12
‘Arnold Dolmetsch: Musical Confucíus’, MQ, xix (1933), 187–98
‘Can Music be Debunked?’, Australian Musical News, xxiv/7 (1934), 14a–d
Music: a Commonsense View of All Types (Melbourne, 1934)
‘Sublime and Frivolous Elements in Music’, Australian Musical News, xxiv/9 (1934), 4–8
‘The Superiority of Nordic Music’, Quest, vii/2 (1937), 7–8
‘The Culturizing Possibilities of the Instrumentally Supplemented a cappella Choir’, MQ, xxviii (1942), 160–73
‘The Specialist and the All-Round Man’, A Birthday Offering to Carl Engel, ed. G. Reese (New York, 1943), 115–19
‘Grieg: Nationalist and Cosmopolitan’, The Etude, lxi (1943), 386, 416–18, 428ff
‘About Delius’, in P. Warlock: Delius, rev. H. Foss (London, 1952), 170–80
T. Balough, ed.: A Complete Catalogue of the Works of Percy Grainger (Perth, 1975)
K. Dreyfus: Music by Percy Aldridge Grainger (Melbourne, 1978)
T. Balough, ed.: A Musical Genius from Australia: Selected Writings by and about Percy Grainger (Perth, 1982)
D. Tall, ed.: Percy Grainger: a Catalogue of the Music (London, 1982)
K. Dreyfus, ed.: The Farthest North of Humanness: Letters of Percy Grainger, 1901–14 (Melbourne, 1985)
J. O’Brien: The Grainger English Folk Song Collection (Perth, 1985)
B. Clunies Ross, ed.: Percy Grainger's Personal Library (Melbourne, 1990)
T.P. Lewis, ed.: A Source Guide to the Music of Percy Grainger (White Plains, NY, 1991)
M. Gillies and D. Pear, eds:: The All-Round Man: Selected Letters of Percy Grainger, 1914–61 (Oxford, 1994)
K. Dreyfus: Music by Percy Aldridge Grainger: first Supplementary List and Index (Melbourne, 1995)
Anon: Percy Aldridge Grainger: List of Published Works (Mainz, 1996)
Grove6 (D. Josephson) [incl. further writings and bibliography]; MGG1 (N. Broder)
D.C. Parker: Percy Aldridge Grainger: a Study (New York, 1918)
C.W. Hughes: ‘Percy Grainger: Cosmopolitan Composer’, MQ, xxiii (1937), 127–36
S. Olsen: Percy Grainger (Oslo, 1963; Eng. trans., n.d.)
I.C. Dorum: ‘Grainger's “Free Music”', SMA, ii (1968), 86–97
Recorded Sound, nos.45–6 (1972) [whole issue; incl. discographies]
T.C. Slattery: Percy Grainger: the Inveterate Innovator (Evanston, IL, 1974)
J. Bird: Percy Grainger: the Man and the Music (London, 1976, rev. 2/1998)
SMA, x (1976) [incl. articles and interview]
Grainger Journal (1978–84); continued as Grainger Society Journal (1985–)
L. Forman, ed.: The Percy Grainger Companion (London, 1981)
SMA, xvi (1982) [whole issue]
D. Josephson: ‘The Case for Percy Grainger, Edwardian Musician, on his Centenary’, Music and Civilization: Essays in Honor of Paul Henry Lang, ed. E. Strainchamps and M.R. Maniates (New York, 1984), 350–62
T. Balough: The Essential Grainger: Percy Grainger's Kipling Settings, 1898–1947 (diss., U. of Western Australia, 1985)
M. Gillies: ‘Grainger's London Years: a Performing History’, Musicology Australia, viii (1985), 14–23
E. Dorum: Percy Grainger: the Man behind the Music (Melbourne, 1986)
J. Blacking: A Commonsense View of all Music: Reflections on Percy Grainger's Contribution to Ethnomusicology and Music Education (Cambridge, 1987)
W. Mellers: Percy Grainger (Oxford, 1992)
M. Gillies: ‘Percy Grainger and Australian Identity: the 1930s’, One Hand on the Manuscript, ed. N. Brown and others (Canberra, 1995), 34–44
C. Grogan: ‘Percy Grainger and the Revival of Early English Polyphony: the Anselm Hughes Correspondence’, ML, lxxvii (1996), 425–39
A. Servadei: A Critical Edition and Exploration of Percy Grainger's ‘The Warriors’ (diss., U of Melbourne, 1996)
K. Dorian-Smith and A. Servadei, eds.: Talking Grainger (Melbourne, 1998)
D. Pear: ‘Percy Grainger and Manliness’, Journal of Australian Studies, no.56 (1998), 106–15