hink of it all - of the life that is! Study your friends and foes!
Study the past! And answer this: "Are these times better than those?" The life-long quarrel, the paltry spite, the sting of your poisoned pride! No matter who fell it were better to fight as they did when the world was wide.
Percy Grainger {1882-1961}
Born in 1882 in Brighton, Victoria, Percy was the son of an architect. The Graingers moved around often and perhaps as a result of this Percy enjoyed the companionship of few childhood friends. He was home schooled by his mother who also began his piano tuition which would be his entry into the world of performing and composing. His father gone from the scene, Percy and his mother travelled to Germany when he was 13 and then to London when he was about 19.
It was in London that Percy met the great Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg who encouraged him in his artistic career as composer to 'classicise' and thus celebrate the folk tunes of the English speaking world, primarily, but also those of other European nations such as the Scandinavian ones. Grainger would become an influential proponent of 'world music' in general. Grainger's folk-orientated compositions were notable for their directions on how they were to be played: 'Rippingly' or 'clatteringly'. Such 'Grangerisms' have frustrated performers of his music ever since.As a performer, Percy is said to have played according to the prevailing mood. His piano style was generally virile and attacking, stemming from performances in large halls he gave in his youth, although he could also be lyrical and gentle. The great Grieg stated that Percy's playing was "like the sun breaking through the clouds", that "it is a great human, a great soul, an aristocrat that is playing". Percy himself said that "fierceness is the keynote of my music".
The man seems to have fashioned an 'athletic philosophy' in life: he was constantly walking, cycling and would never ascend or descend a set of stairs without bounding the entire way. He was an athlete and an artist, with a somewhat ascetic, yet playful, outlook. "I do not eat meat, I do not smoke, and I do not drink" he declared. Grainger admired the supposedly free and wild life of the Vikings and other groups like the ancient Greeks of the Homeric epics.While his artistic side yielded a stern yet playful beauty, his athletic side yielded a cruel yet playful sexuality which he would became notorious for. Percy the child was kept in check by his mother's corporal punishment and by the time he was a teenager he had developed a fetish for pain. He wrote, amusingly, "A man cannot be a full artist unless he is manly, and a man cannot be manly unless his sex-life is selfish, brutal, wilful, unbridled."
Grainger died of prostate cancer in 1961, but performed right up until 1960, leaving behind his wife, a long and fruitful life, but no children. Along with his supremely joyful and energetic music with its visions of force, movement and beauty, his unorthodox character, and bounding personality, Granger's legacy includes his experiments in the 1930's with 'free music', where music could be artificially generated by a machine, anticipating the role of the much used modern synthesiser.Information loosely sourced from 'Facing Percy Grainger' - An exhibition at the National Library of Australia - http://www.nla.gov.au/exhibitions/percygrainger/index.html
~Recommended Works~
- 'Lincolnshire Posy'
- 'Country Gardens'
- 'Shepherd's Hey'
- 'Molly on the Shore'
- 'Green Bushes'
- 'My Robin is to Green Wood gone'
- 'The Duke of Marlborough Fanfare'
- 'Willow, Willow'
- 'Scotch Strathspey and Reel'
- 'I'm Seventeen come Sunday'
- 'Shallow Brown'
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