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Discovering Grainger
an ink-troduction by Adrian Tan
Percy Aldridge Grainger (1882-1961) is one of music's most original voices, and possibly one of the most under-rated composers of the 20th century. Regardless of the array of adjectives used to describe this man, amongst which are "eccentric" and "wild", his genius is undeniable.
Insane?
Perhaps Grainger treads the fine line between ingenuity and insanity that makes his music so unbearably exciting and "affective". An innovator that was way ahead of his time - but today, in the light of the avant garde, is probably more sane than he was thought to be, so to speak.Grainger was born in Melbourne, Australia on July 8th, 1882. His prodigal genius in music exhibited itself at an early age, and with much encouragement from his mother Rose Aldridge, Grainger studied piano performance at the Hoch-Conservatoire in Frankfurt. He was known for his study of the Grieg Piano Concerto with the composer in 1907 and published the definitive annotated edition containing Grieg's explicit directions. In 1914, he sailed to America where he took up residence. By then he was already one of the most reknown pianists of his day.
Eccentric?
In discussing his eccentricity, we often find ourselves with a physical desription: a handsome and athletic young man with bright orange hair (combed upward to about a foot high) in a bizarre suit made by himself from beach towels of various colours stitched together in a pattern of stripes and harlequin-patterns, roaming the English countryside collecting folksongs with child-like mannerisms and enthusiasm.In music, he was known for his creative use of dissonant harmonies and a kind of superficially "inappropriate" harmonization of the charming tunes that he set for various mediums from piano to wind band (his preference!) to orchestra. The truth is, Grainger expresses his music through the harmony, and not so much melody. Critics have raised the point that although Grainger has more than 250 works to his name, he had few original compositions but instead mostly arrangements of tunes from Bach to English country songs to Gershwin. But isn't an arrangement just a rescoring of a tune for a certain instrumentation, trying as much as possible not to change the musical intention?
What Grainger does is, through his "settings" (not arrangements), create a whole new musical interpretation and new dimensions by providing a different texture and colour from the original. This often results in a breath-taking sonic experience as we are taken along a roller-coaster ride of dissonance, multiple voices, ever-expanding melodic material and sometimes "an orgy of war-like dances, processions and merry-making". Yet, he is almost never outwardly expressive. Instead, as in Colonial Song, Grainger displays a sentimentality that must have led Sir Thomas Beecham to describe it as "very possibly the worst orchestral piece of modern times."
He believed in the organic growth of a theme, from the beginning to the end of the piece.
"As music does not stand complete at any one moment (as architecture does), but unfolds itself in time - like a ribbon - rolled out on the floor - I consider a flowing unfoldment of musical form to be part of the very nature of music itself. My aim is to let each phrase grow naturally out of what foreran it ... In other words, I want the music, from first to last, to be ALL THEME and never melodic treatment."
"I view the repetition of themes as a redundancy - as if a speaker should continually repeat himself. I also consider the repetition of themes undemocratic - as if the theme were singled out for special consideration & the rest of the musical material deemed 'unfit for quotation'."
That about sums up his perception of what musical form should be and his democratic ideal which he uses constantly as a theme in his music.
Tone Art?
Grainger reasoned that folk singers, having no 'proper' musical education, were unaware of meter restrictions that we have invented to make the annotation of music simpler. He advocated "Free music", one devoid of the resrictions of bar lines and common meters. This would eventually be a nightmare to performers as in his scoring: he often added extra bars of odd meters to the end of melodic phrases to neutralize the predictable metric structure of what we are used to. He even worked with a physicist to build a machine to create such music!To add on to the problems which musicians already face performing his music, Grainger rejected all non-Anglo-Saxon musical expressions. Thus, music became "tone-art", doctorate became "know-all-title", andante expressivo became "slowly, affectingly", and crescendo poco a poco became "louden bit by bit". It can be quite a challenge to figure out what he really means, so much so that sometimes editors of his music, such as Frederick Fenell, kindly provide a glossary of musical terms for the unintiated. Why? Some suggested that Grainger had racist tendencies, but for myself, "louden bit by bit" always made more sense to me then any Italian word... :)
As I glance down at my list of what I need to tell you about Grainger, I understand how futile it is to wish to cover every aspect of this erm... "strange" man. Rather than spoil the fun for you, I'd rather just point you in one direction and let you discover a whole new magical dimension of sound that is the music of Percy Grainger.
Thus we begin... the Inkpot Survey of Grainger Recordings: • Chandos Grainger Edition Vol.1: Orchestral Works.
BBC Philharmonic/Hickox. CHAN 9493 [72'28"] full-price.• Chandos Grainger Edition Vol.2: Songs for Baritone
Stephen Varcoe baritone · Penelope Thwaites piano
CHAN 9503 [64'50"] full-price.• Chandos Grainger Edition Vol.3: Works for Chorus and Orchestra
Varcoe/Padmore/Thwaites/Joyful Company of Singers/City of London Sinfonia/Hickox.
CHAN 9503 [64'50"] full-price.• "The Power of Love" and other Orchestral Works
Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra/Keith Brion
NAXOS 8.554263 [58'38"] budget-price
Back to the Classical Index!... or read previous reviews and features at the InkpotOther classical music reviews by this or any other writer can be obtained from the InkVault by doing a key word search with the writer's name.
187: 30.5.98. up.31.3.1999 ©Adrian Tan
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