Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist (1882–1961)
Percy Grainger Australian composer
Born
(1882-07-08)8 July 1882
Melbourne, Australia
Died
20 February 1961(1961-02-20) (aged 78)
White Plains, New York, US
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Percy Aldridge Grainger (born George Percy Grainger; 8 July 1882 – 20 February 1961) was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist who moved to the United States in 1914 and became an American citizen in 1918. In the course of a long and innovative career he played a prominent role in the revival of interest in British folk music in the early years of the 20th century. Although much of his work was experimental and unusual, the piece with which he is most generally associated is his piano arrangement of the folk-dance tune "Country Gardens".
Grainger left Australia at the age of 13 to attend the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt. Between 1901 and 1914 he was based in London, where he established himself first as a society pianist and later as a concert performer, composer, and collector of original folk melodies. As his reputation grew he met many of the significant figures in European music, forming important friendships with Frederick Delius and Edvard Grieg. He became a champion of Nordic music and culture, his enthusiasm for which he often expressed in private letters, sometimes in crudely racial or anti-Semitic terms.
In 1914, Grainger moved to the United States, where he lived for the rest of his life, though he travelled widely in Europe and Australia. He served briefly as a bandsman in the United States Army during the First World War through 1917–18, and took American citizenship in 1918. After his mother's suicide in 1922, he became increasingly involved in educational work. He also experimented with music machines, which he hoped would supersede human interpretation. In the 1930s he set up the Grainger Museum in Melbourne, his birthplace, as a monument to his life and works, and as a future research archive. As he grew older, he continued to give concerts and to revise and rearrange his own compositions, while writing little new music. After the Second World War, ill health reduced his levels of activity. He considered his career a failure. He gave his last concert in 1960, less than a year before his death.
Percy Aldridge Grainger (born George PercyGrainger; 8 July 1882 – 20 February 1961) was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist who moved to...
The published musical compositions of PercyGrainger (1882–1961) fall into two main categories: (a) original works and (b) folksong settings. There are...
twentieth century, then popularised by a diverse range of musicians from PercyGrainger and David Stanhope to Jimmie Rodgers. "Country Gardens" can be dated...
movement, whose founder, Robert Baden-Powell, was a friend of Kipling. PercyGrainger composed his Jungle Book Cycle around quotations from the book. Rudyard...
it to the Grainger Museum at the Melbourne University in 1935. The piano has now been restored and is housed on display at the 'PercyGrainger Museum Melbourne...
William Barnes, Charles Dickens, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Elias Molee, PercyGrainger, and George Orwell. English words gave way to borrowings from Anglo-Norman...
and 26. J. Bird, PercyGrainger (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 125. "What shall we do with a drunken sailor – PercyGrainger ethnographic wax...
twentieth century folk revival. The Australian-born composer and folklorist PercyGrainger collected various shanties and recorded them on wax cylinders in the...
PercyGrainger Home and Studio is a historic home located at White Plains, Westchester County, New York. It was built in 1893 and is a two-story, three-bay-wide...
and Popular Poetry called it a "good specimen of a bowline chant". PercyGrainger recorded Charles Rosher of London England singing Shenandoah in 1906...
by PercyGrainger for concert band commissioned in 1937 by the American Bandmasters Association. Considered by John Bird, the author of Grainger's biography...
concert composers who have written for theremin include Bohuslav Martinů, PercyGrainger, Christian Wolff, Joseph Schillinger, Moritz Eggert, Iraida Yusupova...
was used for heaving the windlass or capstan.[page needed] In 1906, PercyGrainger recorded Charles Rosher of London, England, singing "What shall we do...
The Grainger Museum is a repository of items documenting the life, career and music of the composer, folklorist, educator and pianist PercyGrainger (b...
carried out their own field work on traditional music. These included PercyGrainger and Ralph Vaughan Williams in England and Béla Bartók in Hungary. These...
Harry Grainger (30 November 1854 – 15 April 1917) was an Australian architect and civil engineer, who was also the father of musician PercyGrainger. Over...
subsequently orchestrated by Ravel, while the fifth was orchestrated by PercyGrainger, among others. Audio recording of Miroirs I. Noctuelles (4:19) II. Oiseaux...
(1846–1937), English classical archaeologist PercyGrainger (1882–1961), Australian-born composer and pianist Percy Grant (Royal Navy officer) (1867–1952),...
Michael. PercyGrainger and the Impact of the Phonograph, Folk Music Journal Vol. 4, No. 3 (1982), pp. 265-275 Bird, John (1999). PercyGrainger. Oxford...
and folk song collector PercyGrainger. It is known for its use in classical music, both in a choral arrangement by Grainger and a subsequent set of orchestral...
half of the twentieth century of former sailors singing the shanty. PercyGrainger recorded a man named Tom Roberts in Chelsea, London singing a version...
production was broadcast live. He has played historical characters such as PercyGrainger in Ken Russell's Song of Summer (1968), Richard Simmons in The Shadow...
traditional singers performing the song, mostly in England. In 1908, PercyGrainger used phonograph technology to record a Lincolnshire man named William...
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