Percy Grainger (1882-1961) was a piano prodigy turned composer who was known for his strange personal habits, his colorful prose, and his equally unusual music – his many admirers today still recognize that he possessed “the supreme virtue of never being dull.” Born in Australia, he began studying piano at an early age. He came to the U. S. at the outbreak of World War I and enlisted as an Army bandsman, becoming an American citizen in 1919. He went on to explore the frontiers of music with his idiosyncratic folk song settings, his lifelong advocacy for the saxophone, and his Free Music machines which predated electronic synthesizers. His many masterworks for winds include Lincolnshire Posy, Irish Tune from County Derry, Children's March and Molly on the Shore.
Lincolnshire Posy is considered to be Grainger's masterwork for wind band. It is based on folk songs that he and Lucy Broadwood collected in Lincolnshire in 1905-06. He intended it as a collection of "musical wildflowers" reflective not only of the songs but of the singers who sang them to Grainger and their personalities. Thus style plays a big role in each movement. Grainger uses every compositional device at his disposal to great effect: harmonies move unpredictably, meter is unstable or absent, countermelodies creep in and out of prominence, melodies go willfully in and out of phase, all in service of the singer's implied interpretation of each folk tune. Grainger recorded each singer on wax cylinders, using those recordings as reference to faithfully recreate each tune. He began the process of assembling the various tunes into Lincolnshire Posy in 1937. It was premiered by the Pabst Blue Ribbon beer factory worker's band in Milwaukee that same year on March 7. This premier was incomplete: as is often the case today, the PBR band was not up to the challenge of the harder movements.There are an incredible number of performances of Lincolnshire Posy on YouTube. Some highlights:
One of the Air Force bands plays the easy movements (I, II, IV, VI) in an outdoor concert. And they do it INCREDIBLY well!
The third movement, Rufford Park Poachers, is notoriously difficult. Many bands leave it out, but quite a few go for it, like this band from the German-speaking part of Italy. This is version A, which we will use in performance.
That same German-speaking Italian band takes on movement five, Lord Melbourne, the other often-skipped movement. Aside from a couple of cracked notes, they nail it!
Percygrainger.com - much general information on the composer with a focus on his wind band works.
International Percy Grainger Society - Based in White Plains, NY, they take care of the Grainger house there as well as the archives that remain there. They also like to support concerts in our area that feature Grainger's music.
Grainger Museum - in his hometown of Melbourne, Australia, at the University there.
Grainger's
works and performances available at Naxos.com
Finally, I know this is already up on the "Handel in the Strand" and "Children's March" pages, but it's just so good:
One more look at Grainger on YouTube, this time performing on the piano:
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