
Axel Poignant (1906–1986)
Portrait of Percy Grainger
sepia toned photograph
Pictures Collection,
nla.pic-an12090192
National Library of Australia

Percy Aldridge Grainger (1882–1961)
Irish Tune from County Derry
Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Bendigo: Allan & Co., 1921
Published music cover design
printer’s ink on paper with annotations by Grainger in ink and graphite
Grainger Collection, the University of Melbourne
Living in London, Grainger became inspired by English folk songs. He collected them and from 1906 recorded them on a portable phonograph. They in turn informed his first important compositions such as ‘Hill-Song’ no. 1 and no. 2 (1901–07) and ‘Molly on the Shore’ (1907). The culmination of this process was composing ‘Country Gardens’ (1919) which, much to his annoyance, became his flagship work.
Grainger had a similar interest in the folk songs of Scandinavia, and was an influential proponent of ethnic musical forms or ‘world music’. While referencing folk songs, Grainger’s compositions were also notable for their English expression marks; a piece was to be played, for example, ‘clatteringly’, ‘ripplingly’ or ‘bumpingly’. These and other Graingerisms have frustrated performers ever since.
After moving to the United States and spending time as an army bandsman, Grainger wrote for the military band and arranged a number of his popular pieces for band. He also developed an interest in jazz, declaring that ‘the three greatest composers are Bach, Delius and Duke Ellington’.
Perhaps his most interesting achievement was his experiment from 1932 with ‘free music’ where, without the intervention of a performer or composer, music could be artificially generated by a machine. In this work Grainger was anticipating the role of the synthesiser, an indispensable element in our musical landscape today.
Australian composer Keith Humble once stated that Grainger was ‘the beginning of Australian music’. In fact, Grainger had an ambivalent attitude towards the country of his birth. He lived mostly abroad and, despite his early interest in genre forms, strove for a universal or borderless music that could be played anywhere by anyone.
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