Percy Grainger (8 July 1882 – 20 February 1961) was an Australian-born pianist, composer, and champion of the saxophone.

Percy Grainger, 1915

He was born in Brighton, a suburb of Melbourne in 1882, his father an architect and immigrant from London, his mother, Rose, the daughter of hotelliers from Adelaide, of English immigrant stock. His father was an alcoholic, and when Grainger was aged 11, his parents separated after his mother contracted syphilis from his father and his father returned to London. His mother, a domineering and possessive although cultured figure who recognised his musical abilities, brought him to Europe in 1895 to study at Dr. Hoch's conservatory in Frankfurt. There he displayed his talents as a musical experimenter, using irregular and unusual metres.

From 1901 to 1914 Grainger lived in London where he befriended and was influenced by Edvard Grieg, developing a particular interest in recording the folk songs of rural England.

Percy Grainger moved to the United States with the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. When the United States entered that war in 1917, he enlisted as a United States Army bandsman, giving dozens of concerts in aid of War Bonds and Liberty Loans. He became an American citizen in 1918. His piano solo Country Gardens made his name and became a smash hit at this time, although Grainger grew to detest it. With his new found wealth, Grainger and his mother settled in the wealthy suburb of White Plains, New York after the war. Rose Grainger's health, however, both mental and physical, was in decline, and she committed suicide in 1922. Ironically, this freed Grainger from an over-intimate relationship which many had incorrectly assumed to be incestuous, although his mother's memory remained dear to him for the rest of his life.

In the same year, he travelled to Denmark, his first folk-music collecting trip to Scandinavia (although he had visited Grieg there in 1906), and the orchestration of the music of the region would shape much of his finest output.

In November 1926 Grainger met the Swedish artist and poet, Ella Ström, and freed from his mother's domination, fell in love at first sight. Their wedding was one of the most remarkable on record. It took place two years later in the Hollywood Bowl, during a concert before an audience 20,000, with an orchestra of 126 musicians and an a cappella choir, who sang his his new composition, To a Nordic Princess, dedicating it to his Ella.

In 1932 he became Dean of Music at New York University, and underscored his reputation as an experimenter by putting jazz on the syllabus and inviting Duke Ellington as a guest lecturer, although he found academic life difficult and soon abandoned it forever.

In 1940, the Graingers moved to Springfield, Missouri, from which base Grainger again toured to give a series of army concerts during the Second World War. However, after the War, poor health, declining ability as a pianist and the gradual arrival of unfashionability for classical music hit his spirits hard.

In his last years, he worked in collaboration with Burnett Cross, Grainger invented the "Free Music Machine", an ancestor of the electric synthesizer.

Percy Grainger died in New York City and was buried in Adelaide, Australia.

His music aside, he remains controversial on two accounts. Firstly, Grainger was an enthusiastic sado-masochist, a pastime perhaps picked up from his mother, an enthusiastic beater of both his father and himself. Secondly, Grainger, his friendship with Duke Ellington and George Gershwin notwithstanding, was an unashamed racist and anti-semite.

External links

• The Percy Grainger Society (http://www.percygrainger.org.uk)
• Grainger on Australian Music Centre site (http://www.amcoz.com.au/comp/g/pgrain.htm)
• The Grainger Wind Symphony, an Australian Wind Symphony honouring Percy Grainger (http://GraingerWindSymphony.asn.au)
• The Grainger Museum at the University of Melbourne, Australia (http://www.lib.unimelb.edu.au/collections/grainger/)