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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

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Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

An informative guide to composers' lives and their music.

An informative and accessible guide to composers' lives and their music.

Composer of the Week: Percy Grainger (1882-1961)

Composer of the Week: Percy Grainger (1882-1961): Episode 2

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Percy Grainger (1882-1961)

Episode 2

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Percy Grainger (1882-1961), Episode 2

Donald Macleod focuses on how Grainger established himself as a pianist.

Donald Macleod focuses on how Grainger established himself as a pianist, his first successes as a composer and his move to New York.

In today's programme, Grainger finds himself in demand as a concert pianist, and with the backing of his old friend Balfour Gardiner has his first taste of success as a composer too. At first, London must have seemed the perfect base for his activities, but when war was declared in August 1914, he and his mother Rose decided to up sticks and head out of harm's way - to the Big Apple - on the not unreasonable grounds that a war casualty could not become Australia's first significant composer. In New York, Grainger quickly established himself as a pianist, becoming known as "the Siegfried of the piano" for his dashing good looks. He found himself a publisher and commissions started to follow - one of the earliest resulted in one of his best-known compositions, the orchestral suite In a Nutshell. A promised ballet commission from the conductor Thomas Beecham failed to materialize, but Grainger wrote the work anyway; it became his "imaginary ballet", The Warriors, one of his most original and inventive scores.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Donald Macleod explores the unconventional life and music of Percy Grainger

Donald Macleod explores the unconventional life and music of Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist Percy Grainger

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Composer of the Week

Percy Grainger (1882-1961)

Episode 2

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