Percy Grainger Research Paper

George Percy Grainger was born on July 8, 1882 in Brighton, Australia. He was a composer and pianist who used the stage name Percy Aldridge Grainger. His father, John Harry Grainger, was a successful architect who emigrated from London, England in 1876. Percy’s mother, Rosa Annie Aldridge, was born on July 3, 1861 in Adelaide, Australia. Her parents were in the hotel business and were also English immigrants. During the early parts of Percy’s parents’ marriage, his mother received syphilis from his father. When Percy was born, his mother would not touch him until he was five years old to be sure that she did not pass the disease on to him. John Harry decided to take a sea voyage to improve his health in 1890. However, his marriage with his wife ended at this same time and he was never to be with his family again.

Percy Grainger

did see his father again in 1903 when he was touring New Zealand. They ran into each other on the train to Rotorua and Percy was pleased by the encounter. He continued to see his father from time to time and then soon began to financially support his father from 1905 to his death from tertiary syphilis in 1917. His mother was overbearing and quite possessive, although cultured in the arts. Since peers constantly taunted Grainger bout his appearance, he was homeschooled by his mother. She was a strict disciplinarian and Grainger thrived in languages, being fluent in eleven of them. In 1895, Rosa took her son to study at Dr. Hoch’s Conservatory in Frankfurt where Percy’s talents for musical experimentation were realized. He became a part of the Frankfurt Group, a group of composers who studied at the Hoch Conservatory. Granger anticipated various forms of music from the twentieth century before different composers established them. In 1899, he was found composing ‘beat-less music’. In 1912, he was composing ‘unplayable’ music for piano. Percy attributed all of his success to his mother’s influence.
When Grainger lived in London from 1901 to 1914, he befriended a man named Edvard Grieg. Greig had a prevailing interest for folk tunes from his homeland of Norway. Though spending time with Greig, Grainger developed a very similar interest in the folk songs of rural England. He began his collecting of folk songs after hearing Lucy Broadwood’s lecture over the act in 1905. By 1906, he created field records from all around Britain on Edison was cylinders, making his the first to do so. During his trek around Britain, Grainger wrote and performed piano compositions, making what is known as tone clusters popular.
Grainger man quite the name for himself within his piano career. The people of London called him “the jogging pianist” due to his running through the streets in order to reach the stage at the last possible minute because he preferred to be exhausted while playing. Once after finishing a performance in South Africa, Grainger walked 105 km, barely reaching his next performance on time. He performed and conducted well over 3,000 concerts.
In 1910, Granger picked up a new interest in designing and making his own clothes. His creations ranged from jackets to shorts to togas to leggings, and his mediums were towels and complex and beaded skirts. He would wear his creations not only in private but on public outings as well. He also managed to create what would now be considered the modern sports bra for his female interest, Karen Kellerman.
At the outbreak of World War I, Grainger moved to the United States in 1914 due to the constant persists of the military for him to enlist. He refused on behalf of his disapproval for the modern warfare. Unfortunately, he could not avoid the war forever and so he enlisted into the United States Army Band, playing the oboe and soprano saxophone. During his time with the USAB, he participated in many concerts aiding many causes such as War Bonds, Liberty Loans, and the American Red Cross. In 1917, he was initiated as an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia music fraternity. By 1918, he was a naturalized citizen of the United States.
Grainger wrote a piano solo, Country Gardens, giving him a reputation as an outstanding composer.

This brought him great wealth and Grainger used it to settle his mother in White Plains, New York. However, Rosa Grainger’s health took a turn for the worst and she committed suicide in 1922 by jumping from a building that Percy’s manager, Antonia Sawyer, worked. According to a letter that Rosa left her son, her state of mind was the result of all the accusations of their intimate relationship being incestuous. Grainger put this letter in a bottle and wore it as a necklace for many years. Also in 1922, Grainger made his first folk-music trip to Scandinavia, specifically Denmark. This trip gave a large contribution to his financial stability.

In November of 1926, Grainger met a Swedish artist and poet, Ella Viola Ström and they quickly fell in love. On August 9, 1928, Grainger gave a concert on the stage of the Hollywood Bowl. The concert consisted of 20,000 audience members, an orchestra of 126 musicians, and an a cappella choir, who sang his new work, To a Nordic Princess, dedicated to Ella. The two lovebirds were wed following the

performance.
By December 1929, Grainger had created a form of orchestration known as the “elastic scoring.” In 1932, he became the Dean of Music at New York University and emphasized his reputation as a musical experimenter by adding jazz to the class requirements and invited Duke Ellington to speak as a guest lecturer. He was offered honorary doctorates of music but turned them down because of his believe that music should not be a product of education. Grainger was often the guest conductor for the Goldman Band and together performed his masterpiece of Lincolnshire Posy in the summer of 1937.
Grainger moved to Springfield, Missouri in 1940 because of his fear of being attack by enemies at his home along the coast. In 1941, Grainger toured Minnesota with the Gustavus Adolphus College Concert Band under the direction of Frederic Walter Hilary. He shared the piano with Hilary’s later wife, Joyce Virginia Westrom of Cambridge, Minnesota. These concerts were a benefit to raise money for the war efforts.
Grainger made his last appearance on stage in 1960 at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. His last years consisted of him collaborating with physicist Burnett Cross inventing the “Free Music Machine,” the precedent to the modern electric synthesizer. Grainger deeply suffered from prostate cancer, which, despite numerous operations, spread to his abdomen. He died in White Plains, New York in 1961 and was buried in West Terrance Cemetery in Adelaide, South Australia.