Percy Aldridge Grainger (1882-1961)

[SonicMan46]

And Dave, I've had a crush on Barbara Hershey since the late 60s. Yeah, it's too bad the film wasn't made 10, 20 years earlier so she could have assumed a different character. Still, she has aged very well, far better than most women her age, and it was a pleasure seeing her in this role.

Hi Sarge - after your post, I looked up Barbara - boy, she turned 60 y/o a few months ago!    Where has the time gone?  I found her enthralling in Hannah & Her Sisters (as did Michael Caine -    ); just out of coincidence, I 'burned' Boxcar Bertha today off the TCM channel - have not seen the flick in years - probably a 'watch' tonight -     Dave

[Sergeant Rock]

Fennell recorded a lot of Grainger over his long career, especially Lincolnshire at least 5 times I think...all his recordings are uniformly extremely good musically and high in detail, but my favorite is this one, hard to find but SO worth it:

I'll try to find it then. Thanks for the recommendation.

Sarge

[lukeottevanger]

Grainger fans might like to hear Ronald Stevenson's live rendition of the Ramble on the Last Love Duet from Rosenkavalier as I posted on the mystery scores thread (split over two posts) (low bitrate version both to fit on as an upload and to encourage people to buy it!)

[Ugh!]

Grainger and Røntgen with Edvard & Nina Grieg at the Griegs home just a walk away from where I live.

I used to live on the other side of Nordåsvannet, at Kråkenes, and at one point, the mysterious ' of this forum took his family to visit us and we made excursions to Troldhaugen, where ' would ask the staff impossible questions about Grainger

I've been trying to find a recording of Grainger's emulative work of the Balinese Anklung to no avail. Also, his Free Music. I know that No.1 in this series is a composition for 4 theremins. Were there more works within this series?

[Dax]

I've been trying to find a recording of Grainger's emulative work of the Balinese Anklung to no avail. Also, his Free Music. I know that No.1 in this series is a composition for 4 theremins. Were there more works within this series?

Gamelan angklung is on this CD under the title Berong Pengetjet.

http://www.move.com.au/disc.cfm/3222

There is a Free Music no.2 in 6 parts (ie., voices) - rather more interesting than no. 1

[springrite]

Just realized that I have had Grainger's Jungle Book for over 10 years without ever listening to it. I should rectify this this week.

[Ugh!]

I sent copies of the recordings of Grainger playing the concerto (one when he was too old and the other from the roll that showed up here in the US on a disc with those fantastic salon arrangements of the folk tune arrangements with Grainger playing piano (in absentia)  and Stokowski turning knobs in the studio to give the final thing artificial crescendi and diminuendi [i.e., "loudenings and softenings" as PG would say]. That recording is very Graingerian in many respects.)  to that lovely and generally admired docent injured pianist who requested it for the library, but from her I got not so much as a lipstick stained thank-you note.

She did give me a rather bulky envelope containing her knickers and asked me to give it to you, but I forgot all about it

Anyway, continuing this Grainger link in Arendal where I've moved now, the roll was actually used in a live performance with Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra /Rolf Gupta in Arendal in 2007 . And who else changed the rolls but good old Rex Lawson....

[Ugh!]

Recently came across this work centering on Grainger's "Jekyll and Hyde mind":



"Space is not the final frontier, nor is it cyber-space... it's the brain, or at least, our understanding of how it actually works. Jon Rose presents a simple analogy, the Badminton court represents the brain, the two Badminton players play out the roles of the left and right hemispheres. The brain belongs to one time Australian musical genius and deviant, Percy Grainger, a man who created some of the most inspired and beautiful innovations in 20 century music while at the same time being capable of the most depressing racial bigotry. This piece is a satirical celebration of the 'Jekyll & Hyde' in his mind... and perhaps in all of our minds. The 'thoughts' of the players are heard periodically loud and clear throughout the performance (the voice belonging to Elise Lorraine). They react to each other (as sports people do) with personal comments, spurious philosophical assertions, occasional abuse, and observations on the evolutionary struggle.

On each of the rackets and the net are mounted contact microphones and accelerometers, these access musical material. The movements of the rackets then further control tempo, rhythm, panning, volume, etc. The information from each racket confronts, complements or cuts off the material generated by the previous racket stroke.

The role of Percy Grainger is taken by a midi controlled player-piano. There are parts for Hurdy-Gurdy (Stevie Wishart) and other improvising guest musicians (in the CD version Phil Minton & Butch Morris are the extra Badminton players and Grainger's Free Music machines are realized by Rainer Linz). Texts and video images are derived from recently discovered (?) letters by the composer and pianist.

When not providing a violin commentary on this piece of revised music history, Jon Rose umpires the way through Grainger's musical pre-occupations. PERKS celebrates the technology and physicality of music; from the latest interactive technology developed at STEIM, Amsterdam to original 1908 Grainger field recordings of Rarotongan music. Like Grainger himself, PERKS deconstructs a wide range of music vocabularies based on often disparate elements... from a traditional Irish melody to a chaotic version of the Grieg piano concerto. The interactive sounds used in PERKS are digital representations of keyboard, percussion & homemade electronic instruments found (or imagined) in the Grainger museum, Melbourne.

Humanity's brain seems to remain fundamentally flawed".

http://bravojuju.blogspot.com/2008/04/jon-rose-perks-1996.html

[Ugh!]

A memento of the event.
http://www.pianola.org/concerts/concerts_2007.cfm

What has become of your Grieg arrangement for the Chinese. Was it in the Alembics?'

Ha ha, what is the name of the Captain in English? (In Norwegian, Kaptein Vom, Captain Belly).
AFAIK our arrangement of A Swan has been performed in China but I have no idea about the details, I'm going to include it on a forthcoming release, but as Get On.
BTW I didn't realize I'd told you that story about the Mexican clothes robbery - unless that actually happened to Grainger too Well, at least I won't be planning a museum for my whips any time soon 

Did anyone catch the film "Passion" which supposedly is loosely based on Grainger's life?

[Ugh!]

His clothes collection, based on towels, never really took off, for some odd reason.

[The new erato]

19 CDs, 42 £.

Worth it?

[Mirror Image]

19 CDs, 42 £.

Worth it?

I would say definitely, yes, it's definitely worth it. I'm thinking about picking it up myself even though I own three of the discs already.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Just found the biopic on youtube if anyone is interested.

https://www.youtube.com/v/ZlD22mA8F80

Percy Grainger built a museum about himself and everything in it is now I believe part of the collection of the music library at the University of Melbourne. I went one time years ago.......'weird' would be an understatement!

[snyprrr]

Just found the biopic on youtube if anyone is interested.

https://www.youtube.com/v/ZlD22mA8F80

Percy Grainger built a museum about himself and everything in it is now I believe part of the collection of the music library at the University of Melbourne. I went one time years ago.......'weird' would be an understatement!

"sounds positively faaabulous!!"


So, what's the deal with Grainger's Music? I hear all this about his extremely complex notation, but it seems to be at the service of music that doesn't really deserve such virtuosity?

And, did he just write some main pieces, and then transcribe them for brass, or piano, or whatnot? It seems I have the same pieces on the brass collection as on the piano collection.

What would be the eye opener (NOT that eye, eeeew) for someone like me? If he's know for virtuosity, I want to here his zippiest and most obvious cool-beans piece. Anyone?

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

"sounds positively faaabulous!!"


So, what's the deal with Grainger's Music? I hear all this about his extremely complex notation, but it seems to be at the service of music that doesn't really deserve such virtuosity?

And, did he just write some main pieces, and then transcribe them for brass, or piano, or whatnot? It seems I have the same pieces on the brass collection as on the piano collection.

What would be the eye opener (NOT that eye, eeeew) for someone like me? If he's know for virtuosity, I want to here his zippiest and most obvious cool-beans piece. Anyone?

I think he is known particularly for his orchestration skills in particular. I know he was certainly a masterful and very original arranger of folk tunes, but if folk music arrangements aren't much your thing then either Grainger will change your mind completely OR you won't be much impressed by some of his most famous works. You should also keep in mind that no matter what the 'arrangement' is, his music always always sounds original, or at least very different from the source material. Each version of a work is almost like a new work in itself. Probably because he was such an oddball character as well. I want to form an ensemble called Percy's Whips......after his whip collection. Kinky guy.

But I digress.

He's less well known for the vast quantity of original compositions, of which I can certainly recommend To A Nordic Princess and The Warriors in terms of orchestral versions.

He has also created many musical experiments and invented a lot of bizarre instruments that were probably never really used for anything. He was especially interested in an idea which he called 'free-music.'

from wikipedia:

Among various new ideas, Grainger introduced his so-called "free-music" theories. He believed that conformity with the traditional rules of set scales, rhythms and harmonic procedures amounted to "absurd goose-stepping", from which music should be set free. He demonstrated two experimental compositions of free music, performed initially by a string quartet and later by the use of electronic theremins. He believed that ideally, free music required non-human performance, and spent much of his later life developing machines to fulfil this vision.

I hope this is intriguing enough for you to reconsider his music

[SonicMan46]

TTT after 5 years!  And for me, 12+ years before my last posting - WOW -    Looking at my Percy Grainger collection (which I keep in my American section since he came to the USA in 1914 and became a citizen in 1918), I have just 6 CDs and not sure that I've added any recently.  Now listening to the ones shown below top row - SO, I guess the question is any 'new' recordings of interest in the last decade or so?  Dave

P.S. looks like Chandos has put together a 21-CD box ($69 on Amazon USA)!

     

 

[Roasted Swan]

TTT after 5 years!  And for me, 12+ years before my last posting - WOW -    Looking at my Percy Grainger collection (which I keep in my American section since he came to the USA in 1914 and became a citizen in 1918), I have just 6 CDs and not sure that I've added any recently.  Now listening to the ones shown below top row - SO, I guess the question is any 'new' recordings of interest in the last decade or so?  Dave

P.S. looks like Chandos has put together a 21-CD box ($69 on Amazon USA)!

     

 

I absolutely love Grainger.  His music is so individual and full of personality and he surely has one of the most unique tonal/harmonic senses around.  His ability to crunch chords together is quite unlike any other.  Hard to get beyond the Chandos complete edition which is both wide ranging in scope and fine in performance.  In recent years the Naxos wind band versions are very good but no so good to supplant the Chandos equivalents.  I still return to the now very old Britten/Decca "Salue to Percy Grainger" recordings as being as vibrant as any.  The John Elliot Gardiner is a still-surprisingly fine disc.  But new stuff in the last decade ...... not really........