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Abstracts

Grainger in Edwardian London

Anne-Marie Forbes

Grainger during his years in London established a successful career as a concert pianist, and laid the foundations for his subsequent recognition as a composer. A key factor in this career-building process was his introduction to the upper echelons of London society, as a pianist for ‘At Homes.’ These engagements facilitated contacts with the wealthy and influential in musical circles, and led in the years following to an increasing number of high-status concert engagements and some advantageous friendships, such as that with Charles Villiers Stanford, which is investigated in the second half of this article.

‘A Musical Hyde Park Corner:’ Grainger’s Use of Texture

Malcolm Gillies

Percy Grainger considered texture to be akin to music’s fingerprints or skin. Against texture he placed structure, which he likened to a person’s skeleton. This article looks at Grainger’s textural criteria, and the distinctive way in which he sought to weight horizontal and vertical elements. Two of his better-known works, Colonial Song (1905—14) and The Warriors (1913—16), are used as examples of his approach to texture, with its concern for complex part-writing and piquant harmonies. Grainger’s tendency to structural weakness is also briefly considered.

Grainger on Race and Religion

David Pear

Through his reading of German and American racial theorists, Grainger came to the conclusion that one racial group, which he and others dubbed the ‘Nordic,’ was truly unsurpassed. Highly anti-semitic, yet at the same time also strangely anti-German, Grainger’s views first manifested as a bizarre racialism, then developed into an offensive racism. This article argues that Grainger’s opinions cannot be dismissed as merely the product of the times; rather, they formed part of his very raison d’être.

Grainger as an Interpreter of Grieg

Eleanor A.L. Tan

Grainger met Grieg in 1906, and thereafter enjoyed a reputation as an outstanding interpreter of Grieg. Throughout his life, Grainger sustained a connection with Grieg and his music, as reflected in Grainger’s private letters, public writings, editions and performances of Grieg’s piano works. This essay explores Grainger’s performance art through his robust interpretations of Grieg’s Piano Concerto and ‘Norwegian Bridal Procession,’ Op. 19 No. 2.

Walt Whitman and the Synthesis of Grainger's Manliness

David Pear

Walt Whitman provided Grainger with a perspective on the American understanding of the male body, and an example of how an artist might be both muscular and aesthetic. Grainger was already familiar with Whitman’s Leaves of Grass by the time that he had arrived in America in 1914, and he found much there to be acceptable due to his previous exposure to things American through the eyes of the poet. While Whitman was less directly influential upon Grainger’s musical output, he made available to the composer a whole life philosophy.

'LIVING, DEATHLESS, TIMELESS Music.' Grainger and Early Music

Kathleen E. Nelson

During the early 1930s Grainger became deeply interested in music dating from the seventeenth century and earlier. His commitment to early music encompassed performance, production of editions and education, and was connected to his concept of universality in music. This paper surveys Grainger’s nascent interest in early music, as seen in his settings from the Chappell collection of old English songs, the inclusion of early music and ideas drawing on early music in his lectures and lecture-recitals of the early 1930s, as well as his friendship and collaboration with Dom Anselm Hughes and the Dolmetsch family.

Folksong and Mode in Grainger's 'A Lincolnshire Posy'

Warren Bourne

Grainger used folksongs as the basis of the six movements of A Lincolnshire Posy (1937). Of particular interest in this regard are the melodic and rhythmic idioms and the characteristic deployment of the modes. Grainger’s imaginative, yet faithful, handling of the original folksongs gives A Lincolnshire Posy its strength, integrity and vigour.

Grainger and the Australian Broadcasting Commission after 1935: Memories, Hopes and Frustrations

Kathleen E. Nelson

Grainger’s 1934—35 visit to Australia included a major tour for the Australian Broadcasting Commission. The ABC tour, which saw him give concert performances and broadcasts, was for Grainger a very satisfactory experience and gave rise to an ongoing interest in the organisation. He maintained correspondence with staff members, and especially with William G. James, the ABC’s longstanding Director of Music. This paper discusses Grainger’s interaction with ABC staff, his donation of scores, attempts to organise another tour, and the frustration of plans for the 1950s, as well as hopes for the first performance of the complete Kipling ‘Jungle Book’ Cycle.

Simon Perry

From around 1920 until his death in 1961 Grainger produced a vast amount of autobiographical material, virtually none of which has been published. Much of it deals with Grainger’s well-known, if controversial, views on art, language, sex, race and politics. Some of the ideas expressed, and the mode of address used, appear to differ from his better-known, published material. The material under review here offers a number of different perspectives on these well-known themes.

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