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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 3

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Percy Grainger (1882-1961)

Episode 3

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

Donald Macleod focuses on Grainger's adoption of US citizenship and his marriage.

Donald Macleod focuses on Grainger's adoption of US citizenship, his enlistment in the army as a bandsman, his mother Rose's suicide, and marriage to Ella Viola Strom.

At the start of today's programme, Grainger - a pacifist - joins the US army, as Bandsman, 2nd Class. Soon after, he was to plant still deeper roots on that side of the pond by becoming an American citizen and buying a house for himself and his mother Rose, about an hour's journey from New York - a faintly Oedipal domestic idyll which would be rudely shattered the following year, when Rose committed suicide by throwing herself from the 14th storey of Grainger's management office. Grainger's reaction was to throw himself into his work - a music festival, a teaching commitment and a protracted European tour. By this time, his arrangement of 'Country Gardens' was flying off the shelves of music shops everywhere at a phenomenal rate, making trips to his native Australia affordable. It was on the return journey from one such trip that he met his "Nordic princess", Ella Viola Ström, who approached him in the ship's music room for a banjulele lesson and ended up with a husband. Their wedding ceremony - and indeed their marriage - was as unconventional as Grainger himself.

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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Percy Grainger (1882-1961)

Episode 3

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