Composer of the Week: Percy Grainger

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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): Purity and freedom

Percy Grainger (1882-1961)

Purity and freedom

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Percy Grainger (1882-1961), Purity and freedom

Donald Macleod concludes his week of programmes about the life and music of Percy Grainger

Donald Macleod explores some of Percy Grainger's more unsavoury views and his quest for musical 'freedom'.

Donald Macleod concludes his week of programmes about the life and music of Percy Grainger with an exploration of some of the composer's more unsavoury views and his quest for musical 'freedom'.

There’s no question that Percy Grainger had some pretty strange ideas. Some of them seriously offensive, such as his notions about racial purity and the superiority of the Nordic and Anglo-Saxon races. One of his cranky obsessions was a long-held quest to ‘purify’ the English language, avoiding what he termed “French-begotten, Latin-begotten and Greek-begotten” words, to achieve his goal of a ‘blue-eyed English’ and this he applied to musical terms as well. 

In later life he also devoted time to developing his ideas about free music, which he had had for some time. As a young man he had heard in his head what he called “nature-echoing, gliding, scale-less and non-metrical sounds”. Grainger’s gloriously open-minded approach to music was such that he loved upsetting musical apple-carts wherever he found them, flying in the face of orthodoxy and relishing the opportunity to try new musical experiences and constantly hurtling himself into bruising brushes with authority. His pioneering trail culminated in the almost unique experiments he made with “free music”.


Shepherd's Hey
Percy Grainger, piano

The Power of Love
Claire Booth, soprano
Christopher Glynn, piano

Jutish Melody (Danish Folk Song Suite)
Penelope Thwaites, piano

To a Nordic Princess
Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra
Richard Hickox, conductor

Immovable Do	
Joyce Griggs, tenor saxophone
J Michael Holmes, soprano saxophone
Phil Pierick, alto saxophone)
Adrianne Honnold, alto saxophone
Adam Hawthorne, alto saxophone
Joyce Griggs, tenor saxophone
Drew Whiting, tenor saxophone
Jesse Dochnahl, baritone saxophone
Ben Kenis, bass saxophone

Free Music			
Academy of St Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble

Free Music No 2
Lydia Kavina, theramin

The Jungle Book (excerpts)
Polyphony
Stephen Layton, conductor


Producer: Martin Williams

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

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 surveys the life and work of Australian-born composer Percy Grainger.

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