Table Of ContentGrainGer the Modernist
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Grainger the Modernist
edited by
suzanne robinson
University of Melbourne, Australia
and
Kay dreyfus
Monash University, Australia
© suzanne robinson, Kay dreyfus and the Contributors 2015
all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
suzanne robinson and Kay dreyfus have asserted their right under the Copyright, designs
and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.
Published by
ashgate Publishing Limited ashgate Publishing Company
Wey Court east 110 Cherry street
union road suite 3-1
farnham burlington, Vt 05401-3818
surrey, Gu9 7Pt usa
england
www.ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Grainger the modernist / edited by suzanne robinson and Kay dreyfus.
pages cm
includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4724-2022-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-1-4724-2023-7 (ebook) –
ISBN 978-1-4724-2024-4 (epub) 1. Grainger, Percy, 1882–1961—Criticism and
interpretation. i. robinson, suzanne. ii. dreyfus, Kay.
ML410.G75G74 2014
780.92–dc23
2014031158
ISBN 9781472420220 (hbk)
ISBN 9781472420237 (ebk – PDF)
ISBN 9781472420244 (ebk – ePUB)
bach musicological font developed by © yo tomita
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Printed in the united Kingdom by henry Ling Limited,
at the dorset Press, dorchester, dt1 1hd
Contents
List of Figures vii
List of Music Examples ix
Notes on Contributors xi
Acknowledgements xv
1 Introduction 1
2 ‘The Beauty of Bravery’: Alternative Modernisms,
De-Historicizing Grainger 17
Sarah Collins and Simon Perry
3 Grainger and the Performativity of Folk Song 33
Graham Freeman
4 A ‘Treat Equal to Wagner’: Grainger’s Interactions with the Music
and Culture of Polynesia 55
Graham Barwell
5 ‘A Natural Innovationist’: Percy Grainger’s Early British Folk
Song Settings 77
Dorothy de Val
6 Giving Voice to ‘the Painfulness of Human Life’: Grainger’s Folk
Song Settings and Musical Irony 93
Peter Tregear
7 Grainger and the ‘New Iconoclasts’: Forays into Modernist
French Music 107
Emily Kilpatrick
8 The Hispanic Grainger: Encounters with the Modern Spanish
School 123
Michael Christoforidis and Ken Murray
9 Minstrelsy, Ragtime, ‘Improvisatory Music’ and Percy Grainger’s
‘Unwritten Music’ 139
John Whiteoak
vi Grainger the Modernist
10 When Grainger Was Ultra-Modernist: A Study of the American
Reception of In a Nutshell (1916) 163
Suzanne Robinson
11 ‘Serious Music’: The Brisbane Reception of Grainger’s Historical
Chamber Music Recitals (1934) 181
Samantha Owens
12 Percy Grainger, Henry Cowell and the Origins of the World Music
Survey Course 201
Peter Schimpf
13 Grainger as Educator: On the First Performance of The Immovable
Do for Wind Band 219
Phillip Allen Correll
14 Percy Grainger: A Pioneer of Electronic Music 231
Andrew Hugill
Index 255
List of Figures
4.1 The Rarotongan contingent at the 1906–07 Christchurch
Exhibition. Their leader, Makea Daniela, is far right. Originally
published in James Cowan, Official Record of the New Zealand
International Exhibition of Arts and Industries, Held at
Christchurch, 1906–7: A Descriptive and Historical Account
(Wellington: Government Printer, 1910), 354. 60
4.2 Peter Buck/Te Rangi Hiroa with some of the visiting Cook
Islanders at the 1906–07 Christchurch Exhibition. Photograph by
Samuel Heath Head, 1/1–007477-G, Alexander Turnbull Library,
Wellington, New Zealand. 61
4.3 Grainger wearing his ‘grass’ skirt, beadwork necklace, belt and
armbands, 12 August 1909. Photograph by Rose Grainger. Acc. no.
99.0500, Grainger Museum. Reproduced by kind permission of the
Estate of Percy Aldridge Grainger. 64
4.4 Grainger’s tip on noting: ‘use a tube not a trumpet’. Letter to
Roger Quilter, [August 1909], Grainger Museum. Reproduced by
kind permission of the Estate of Percy Aldridge Grainger. 66
4.5 One of the boxes holding a Danish copy of the first of the five
1907 wax cylinder recordings of Rarotongan music given
to Grainger by Knocks in 1909. Acc. no. 04.1173, Grainger
Museum. Reproduced by kind permission of the Estate of Percy
Aldridge Grainger. 67
4.6 Grainger and Knocks at Otaki, 16 September 1924. Acc. no.
99.4700, Grainger Museum. Reproduced by kind permission of the
Estate of Percy Aldridge Grainger. 72
4.7 Grainger and Elmer O. Thompson, who invented the electric eye
device for copying wax cylinder recordings without damage, 25
September 1940. E & MP 93.015, National Museum of American
History, Science Service Historical Images Collection, courtesy of
Philco Corporation and the Library of Congress. 74
8.1 La Belle Otero dancing ‘Le tango de la table’, accompanied by
an estudiantina, in Une fête à Seville at the Théâtre de Marigny in
Paris in 1900. Le Théâtre no. 43 (October 1900 [I]): 20. 133
viii Grainger the Modernist
9.1 Cover of Chas. Sheard & Co’s Second Album of American
Cakewalks published in London while In Dahomey was
still running. Whiteoak Research Collection. 153
10.1 D. Cramer, The International Anthem (1918, detail). Acc. no.
01.2044, Grainger Museum. Reproduced by kind permission of
the Estate of Percy Aldridge Grainger. 172
13.1 Karl L. King at rehearsal, 22 February 1940. Band Library, East
Central University, Ada, Oklahoma. Reproduced by permission of
the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at East
Central University in Ada, Oklahoma, USA. 225
13.2 Grainger at rehearsal, 23 February 1940. Band Library, East
Central University, Ada, Oklahoma. Reproduced by permission of
the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at East
Central University in Ada, Oklahoma, USA. 226
14.1 Sliding Pipes Free Music Invention (1946), constructed from
masonite, wire, string and tape. Acc. no. 01.0002, Grainger
Museum. Reproduced by kind permission of the Estate of Percy
Aldridge Grainger. 247
14.2 Cross-Grainger Free Music Experiment (February 1950):
Gliding tones on whistle and notes on recorders produced by
holes and slits cut in paper rolls. Acc. no. 99.5700, Grainger
Museum. Reproduced by kind permission of the Estate of Percy
Aldridge Grainger. 247
14.3 Percy Grainger and Burnett Cross testing the Cross-Grainger Free
Music Experiment (February 1950). Acc. no. 99.5700, Grainger
Museum. Reproduced by kind permission of the Estate of Percy
Aldridge Grainger. 248
14.4 Cross-Grainger Free Music Experiment: ‘“Sea-Song” sketch,
three solovoxes, played by pianola roll’ (1950). Acc. no. 99.5700,
Grainger Museum. Reproduced by kind permission of the Estate of
Percy Aldridge Grainger. 248
14.5 Percy and Ella Grainger with the Free Music Tone-Tool
(August 1951). Acc. no. 99.5700, Grainger Museum. Reproduced
by kind permission of the Estate of Percy Aldridge Grainger. 249
14.6 Ella Grainger, seated at her writing desk in the living room at home
in White Plains, contemplates the Kangaroo-Pouch Machine (mid-
1950s). Acc. no. 99.5700, Grainger Museum. Reproduced by kind
permission of the Estate of Percy Aldridge Grainger. 250
14.7 Cross-Grainger Electric-Eye Tone-Tool. Acc. no. 01.0002,
Grainger Museum. Reproduced by kind permission of the Estate of
Percy Aldridge Grainger. 251
List of Music Examples
3.1 Grainger’s transcription of ‘’Merican Frigate; or Paul Jones’ as
sung by George Wray on 28 July 1906, and published in Journal of
the Folk-Song Society 3, no. 12 (May 1908): 206–12. Reproduced
by courtesy of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, English
Folk Dance and Song Society. 38
3.2 Grainger’s transcription of Oksefaldet (‘Melodi 9’) from 23 August
1922. MG 13/2–2, Danish Folk Song Collection, Grainger
Museum. Reproduced by kind permission of the Estate of Percy
Aldridge Grainger. 45
3.3 R.3109–12, Gacko (Hercegovina), as sung by Almasa Zvizdić,
23 April 1935, and published in Béla Bartók and Albert B. Lord,
Serbo-Croatian Folk Songs (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1951), 117. 49
5.1 Grainger, ‘Barbara Allen’, bars 1–4, from ‘Early Settings of
Folksongs & Popular Tunes’ (1899). MG3/102–7-2, Grainger
Museum. Reproduced by kind permission of the Estate of Percy
Aldridge Grainger. 84
5.2 Grainger, ‘Early One Morning’, bars 5–12, from ‘Early Settings
of Folksongs & Popular Tunes’ (1899). MG3/102–7-2, Grainger
Museum. Reproduced by kind permission of the Estate of Percy
Aldridge Grainger. 85
5.3a Malcolm Lawson, ‘O’er the Moor’, bars 1–8, from Songs of the
North, 20th ed. (London: J. Cramer & Co., [1884]), 160. 88
5.3b Grainger, ‘O’er the Moor’, bars 1–6, from ‘Scottish
Folksongs from Songs of the North’, Grainger Museum,
MG3/77, 12. Reproduced by kind permission of the Estate of
Percy Aldridge Grainger. 89
5.4 Grainger’s setting of ‘Bonnie George Campbell’, bars 20–27 from
‘Scottish Folksongs from Songs of the North’, Grainger Museum,
MG3/77, 10. Reproduced by kind permission of the Estate of
Percy Aldridge Grainger. 90
6.1 Grainger, opening of ‘Hard-Hearted Barb’ra (H)Ellen’, ed. Barry
Peter Ould (Aylesbury: Bardic Edition, 2012). Reproduced by kind
permission of the Estate of Percy Aldridge Grainger and with the
assistance of Barry Peter Ould. 98
