Grainger

              Figure
GRAINGER



Photo by Morse




HORNER-MOYER, Inc.
 3005 HARRISON STREET KANSAS CITY, MO.




PIANIST



Photo by Morse




Not many concert soloists can fill the Northrop auditorium at the Sunday afternoon concerts, but Percy Grainger succeeded in doing it for the fourteenth program in this series, and he gave his thousands of admirers plenty of chances to express themselves, which they did with a vociferous enthusiasm that was as contagious as it was impelling.—


Minneapolis, Minn.





Grainger's magnificent playing combined with his powerful touch is firmness and perfection of technique all colored with the player's unique personality.



The thundering applause was too sincere to be ignored.  Grainger graciously played his lovely and familiar composition, 
Country Gardens.
  If the composer had played nothing else the program would have been a success.



To have heard Percy Grainger is to have realized the charm and power that may belong to piano compositions.—



Columbus, Ohio




Grainger is unquestionably one of the key-board's most authentic poets, and moreover, he has that unique type of genius which courts public response by many and various devices, without any sacrifice of musicianly dignity.—


Detroit, Michigan




He played superbly, even devotionally, displaying an art that has ripened without losing its individuality.  His rendition of the Brahms F Minor Sonata was the finest performance of a Brahms piano work that I have heard.—


Los Angeles, California




Grainger was literally magnificent, playing the sensational music as if he had been born to do nothing else.  It was a thrill in a season by no means commonplace.—


Chicago, Ill.




For there is a sturdy tang in the playing of this pianist, who brings to his work the zest of youth tempered with wide emotional experience, a tang that is as refreshing and irresistable[sic irresistible] as is the tang of the sea to those who love it.  Grainger projects his tones like so many balls of crystal clarity.  At times his tone has the soft beauty of pearls and velvet.—


San Francisco, California




One of the most delightful recitals of piano music that Boston has heard in many a day was that given by Percy Grainger at Symphony Hall last evening.—


Boston, Mass.





Percy Grainger turned his only piano recital of the season last night into an amiable, informal occasion.  To Mr. Grainger music expresses definite pictures and emotions, and he does not hesitate to communicate to his audience, via program note or word of mouth, his impressions of the compositions he undertakes.  After all, if certain commentators on music may go the natural world for comparisons, why not the interpreter?



It is not often that recitalists take an audience into their confidence as Mr. Grainger did.  Last night's audience seemed to like it as well as his playing, in which were revealed agreeable tone, careful phrasing and generous understanding.—



New York Times




Through the evening Mr. Grainger made apparent the fact that his command of the piano is no less comprehensive than it has ever been; also that his capacity to produce lovely, sonorous tone from the instrument remains constant.  Each work he played was seen through the mind of a thoroughly musical nature, and expressed by the resources of an undeviating pianistic virtuosity.  A good-sized audience was warmly applausive.—


New York Sun





GRAINGER THRILLS WORCESTER FESTIVAL




Percy Grainger, the pianist and composer, 
stole the show
 in the opening concert of the 72nd annual music festival tonight in Mechanic's Hall, where he gave a capacity audience the thrill of the night with his new work, 
Tribute to Stephen Foster.




It was the first performance of the work ever given in public, and it increased the popularity of the versatile musician to the highest pitch he ever attained here.  The audience simply 
went wild
 over the novelty.—


Boston Globe






Grainger's 
Tribute to Stephen Foster,
 
Irish Tune from County Derry
 and 
Father and Daughter.




He has constructed on it (Foster's 
Doodah
 tune) a free fantasy, which is a very riot of color, vocal and instrumental.



The piece aroused the audience, which gave the composer an ovation.


The audience's enthusiasm for this lovely folk piece, as heard through the art of a composer who believes in the music that springs from the soil, was great.  Then his setting of a Faroe Island folk ballad, 
Father and Daubhter,
 was sung and he was called out again to acknowledge the applause.


I had heard it many years ago in New York.  I recognized it then as a very striking composition, but last evening the performance was so much better that it revealed itself anew.—


Worcester Evening Post





For a good rollicking song, Percy Grainger's 
Hunter in His Career,
 with its Tally-Ho refrain can hardly be beat.  So captivating was it, in fact, that it literally swept the audience off its feet and the chorus was forced to repeat it.—


Bridgeport, Conn.




Here melodies sing and sob and caress and yearn.  In exquisite gusts this music wells up and on.  In rich and yet not cloying colors Grainger paints panoramic frescoes.  His combination of strings, woodwind, organ and piano yield an abundance of tints and hues.  He has come to be the master of laying color over color, or threading it into an uncannily beautiful, flexible texture that absorbs not melodic-linear detail, but rather brings it up and fore, like that last chord, which
 dawn-like, does not end the work, but seems as a new burst of caressing beauty.  Thus, in 'To a Nordic Princess,' Grainger bares his very romantic heart.—

Los Angeles, California


Figure
COMPOSER

Photo by Morse





The 
Marching Song of Democracy,
 is a short, compact work, full of punch and energy.  The vigor and dare of the Anglo-Saxon peoples are typified in the music which moves with a rhythmic swing and forceful urge, that is insistent and compelling.  With a small compass Grainger has built up a climax that fairly catches the breath.  He led the orchestra and choral union with a firm beat that brought out every ounce of the stirring composition.—


Detroit, Michigan





There was 
Handel in the Strand,
 a bully good dance.  Then came a contrast, what Mr. Grainger calls a ramble on 
My Robin Is to the Greenwood Gone,
 a gentle, plaintive affair for flute, English horn, and six solo strings.


Then Mr. Grainger turned to the piano again and took up 
Over the Hills and Far Away,
 a march that carried one's feet along with it.  The audience kept calling him back, so finally he and the orchestra played his 
Shepherd's Hey,
 another pulse quickener.—


Chicago, Ill.







CONDUCTOR


Figure




Photo by Morse




Percy Aldridge Grainger was born at Brighton, Melbourne, Australia, July 8, 1882.  His mother, devoted to music, sat beside him for two hours daily while he studied the piano, from his sixth to his tenth year.  He then studied with Louis Pabst, in Melbourne, appearing publicly at the age of ten.  By the time he was twelve he had earned enough with concerts to go with his mother to Germany, for further musical studies.




In 1901, they settled in London, Grainger touring England, Australia, South Africa, Holland, Scandinavia, and other European Countries.




Although Bach has always been his favorite composer, Grainger has also been a consistent champion of the moderns, being the first to play Debussy, Ravel, Cyril Scott, Delius, Albeniz, Carpenter, Dett and Guion in many lands.




In 1905, Grainger began to collect folksongs, with the phonograph, gathering many hundred melodies in this manner in England, Denmark, the South Seas, etc.




In 1907, Grieg heard Grainger play, and wrote as follows in the Scandinavian press:  
What is nationality?  I wrote Norwegian peasant dances that none of my own countrymen could play, and here comes this young Australian and interprets them as they should be interpreted.  He is a genius such as we Scandinavians must love.
 Grieg chose Grainger to play the Grieg concerto at the Leeds (England) Festival of 1907.




As a composer, Grainger is no less famous than as a piano virtuoso.  His 
Country Gardens
 is a 
best seller
 and pieces such as 
Molly on the Shore,
 
Irish Tune from County Derry,
 
Shepherd's Hey
 are played wherever music is made.




In 1915, Grainger made his American debut, and became an American citizen in 1918, while serving as a bandsman in the U. S. Army.




In 1928, he married the Swedish painter and poetess, Ella Viola Strom, writing his orchestral 
To a Nordic Princess
 as a wedding gift to her.




He is a magnificent pianist, a skilled conductor, a happy composer and a captivating personality, all in one.—


Duluth, Minn.




He was seen in three roles—soloist—composer and conductor—and in all three he shone.—


Montreal, Canada




The composer led the performance with gestures at once admonitory and inspiring.  Whipping the orchestra and the choral union into a perfect frenzy.  The applause which followed left no doubt of the impression the work had made.—


Detroit, Michigan





Mr. Grainger's conducting is forthright and simple, with vigorous but not exaggerated gestures.  He knows what effects he wishes to secure and gets them from the orchestra.



One must admit that Grainger's compositions, like his playing and like his conducting, are spontaneous and genuine expressions of musical feeling.  One must admit also that this musical feeling is shared by very many concert-goers and amateur musicians.—



Herald, Boston, Mass.




Yet Mr. Grainger's skill with the baton exceeded even the most ardent expectations.  His beat is sharp, clear, sensitive and elastic; though he makes no vain show, he is not sparing of expressive gestures, and for him yesterday the Orchestra played as it has played for none other.—


Post, Boston, Mass.




The orchestra, which was evidently inspired by its guest conductor, played to the satisfaction of its vast listeners.  The audience was highly enthusiastic throughout the performance.—


Christian Science Monitor, Boston, Mass.




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ANTONIA MORSE
 Nine Cromwell Place - White Plains, N. Y.