Grainger, Percy Aldridge (8th July1882-20th February 1961)

He was a pianist, conductor and composer born George Percy Grainger in Brighton, Melbourne, Australia to a family where his father was an architect and had emigrated to Adelaide from England in 1877 and later became the Chief Architect of the Western Australian Department of Public Works from 1897 to 1905. His father left for England in 1890 and although returning to Australia, he did not go back to his family apart from meeting Percy in Europe and Australia on an odd occasion.

He showed talent in musical and graphic arts from an early age with his mother providing some music tutelage. He continued studying the piano from 1892 with the pianist Louis Pabst before his teacher left for Europe in 1894. He also studied harmony and wrote his first piece around 1893 for his mother’s birthday. Around this time he attended a preparatory boys school for several months.

In 1894 he played at a concert at the Risvegliato concert in Melbourne’s Masonic Hall and in 1895 he performed at a concert at Melbourne Town Hall. Not long after that he and his mother went to Frankfurt-Am-Main in Germany where his mother worked as an English teacher and he studied piano at Dr. Hoch’s Konservatorium from the time he was 13 for the next four and a half years. He also studied counterpoint and composition and wrote several pieces during these years, including early settings of Kipling.

After he finished as a student In 1900 he gave a solo recital in Frankfurt before going to live in London with his mother to begin his career in 1901. He became very popular with the Australians that had relocated and played several times for royalty, including Queen Alexandria, who had attended several recitals after having been introduced to him by the socialite Lillith Lowrey. He and Lowrey entered into a relationship even though she was 20 years older than him. He toured England, Scandinavia and other European countries and took further studies with Ferruccio Busoni in Berlin, Germany in 1903.

From 1903 to 1904 he toured with Ada Crossley’s concert party and then toured with her in England in 1907. That same year Edvard Grieg chose him to perform a concerto at Leeds Festival, but died before Grainger performed it. Before long he and Frederick Delius began a professional association and friendship and he returned to work with Ada Crossley, touring Australasia from 1908 to 1909. During these years he also composed works in original and folk settings that include “Handel in the Strand”, “Mock Morris” and “Molly on the Shore”.

In 1913 he performed in Russia and Finland and continued his life in London between times. He was continually busy but he was also the financial support for both of his parents from around 1906. In 1911 he used the professional name Percy Aldridge Grainger, by adding his mother Rose’s maiden name as a middle name.

His ability as a composer and conductor were also recognised, possibly after the H. Balfour Gardiner Choral and Orchestral Concerts in 1912 and 1913. Publication of his music saw almost instant success and he was writing and arranging music as fast as he could. He also performed as a conductor at many concerts.

In 1913 he was engaged to one of his pupils, Margot Harrison, but it did not last. He remained in London until 1914 until the outbreak of WWI, when he and his mother suddenly left the city for the United States. He gave his first American tour in 1915. This didn’t go down well with many of his British friends and it became worse when he signed up with the US Army as a bandsman in 1917, only performing in concerts but not seeing service. His father also died in Melbourne, Australia in 1917 suffering from syphilis.

In 1918 he became a US citizen and in 1919 he refused an invitation to become the conductor of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and went back to his career as a pianist, conductor and composer with his work becoming widely acclaimed and almost idolised. In 1919 his Country Gardens, fashioned from the tune he had obtained from Cecil Sharp in 1908, was published and become possibly his best known piano piece. In 1921 he bought a large house in White Plains, New York where he would remain for the rest of his life.

When the 1920s came around he suffered a terrible loss after his mother committed suicide in 1922. She had been his constant companion and managed his business and social affairs but had despaired after effects of syphilis and possible rumours of incest. Needless to say, her death had a terrible effect for the rest of his life. He visited Australia once in 1924 to visit his mother’s family and tour and once in 1926 on a concert tour. It was during these years that he started concerts, often thought of as controversial, known as “lecture recitals” where he spoke as much as he played and the music involved his own cultural interests.

While travelling back to the United States in 1926 he met Ella Viola Strom who was a Swedish painter and poet. They married at a public ceremony at the end of a concert at the Hollywood Bowl in 1928. At the wedding he performed his song “To a Nordic Princess” and the marriage, although resulting in no children, provided him with a step-daughter, Elsie, and returned the lost feeling of companionship he had had with his mother.

In the late 1920s and into the 1930s he became interested in musical education and became Professor or Music at New York University from 1932 to 1933.

During the 1930s he toured Australia for the Australian Broadcasting Commission between 1934 and 1935 and the income from this brought the establishment of the University of Melbourne’s Music Museum and Grainger Museum. During this time he gave the “Music: A Commonsense View of All Types” series of 12 radio talks. Being fluent in several European languages, he collected, edited, arranged and transcribed a wide range of music, which he also taught and wrote about. Continuing to write and re-score his own work he also arranged compositions by Bach, Brahms and Delius among others. Back in the United States he did experiments in the sound of what he termed “free music”.

As the 1940s came around he continued with his concert performances, but had scaled them down from then going into the 1950s. He refused the position of Chair of Music at Adelaide University and visited his museum in Australia for the last time between 1955 and ’56, still continuing to work, although not at the same pace as in previous years. In 1954 King Haakon of Norway presented him with the St.Olav Medal in recognition of his long-standing promotion of Edvard Grieg’s music.

Having suffered from ill health and undergone several surgeries, his last performance was given at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire in 1960. He died of cancer in hospital at White Plains in February 1961 when he was 78 years old. He was buried with his mother’s family in Adelaide, Australia.

He left a legacy of his work being remembered as his own original compositions as well as arrangements and recordings of folk music. Many of his numerous recordings were made over a nearly 50-year period between 1908 and 1957 and since then there have been recordings made by a myriad of other artists. Many of his compositions and arrangements were not performed until after his death.

His home in White Plains, New York is now the Percy Grainger Library.

Sources:

Grainger, Percy Aldridge (8th July1882-20th February 1961)

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