GRAINGER — the Inimitable

Radio Record, Volume IX, Issue 14, 11 October 1935, Page 12

GRAINGER — the Inimitable

FA Modernist Lover of the Classics to Broadcast in N.Z.

BRCY GRAINGER, the Australian composer-pianist, did not create his popularity by settling in a comfortable groove and playing the wellworn masterpieces that were the almost invariable rule in the recital programmes of pianists in Victorian days. Beginning his career as a virtuoso at the age of 18, in London, he straightway blazed new trails by becoming a prophet of modernism. In various parts of the world he used his tours to spread knowledge of pianoforte music that his public had never heard before. This artist, who arrived from Australia a few days ago, after a series of phenomenally successful broadcasts, is to tour, the four main New Zealand stations. His first broadcast ‘will be from 4YA, It is a tribute to his critical insight that since those days of high adventure sO many of these works and their composers’ names have become household words to music-lovers the world over. Between 1902 and 1904 Grainger was the very first to play on the concert platform the music of Debussy and Cyril Scott in England and other lands. A little later he did pathfinder work with the compositions of Maurice Ravel and the Spaniard Albeniz. Although Grainger is a keen modernist, he loves the classics with the same warmth. He believes in the universality of art, dislikes all aesthetic party spirit, and bewails every trend that would sunder the old from the new, the popular from the classical, the complex from the simple. He feels that time and place of origin, school or type of composition should hold no sway over our musical judgment, which should rather be grounded on one consideration alone: indwelling, instinctive musicality. Grainger has: made it his particular mission to spread. music of our own race. "We have real gems of cham-ber-musice from the 16th and-17th centuries," he says; the composers of those times wrote @ more complicated and emotional type of chamber-music than the composers of the 18th and 19th centuries, when the whole of music was getting into the hands of professional players. The music of the 16th and 17th centuries was written for the pleasure of the amateurs who. performed ‘it. It is. therefore more. suitable for the ‘present: day, ‘when, ‘people: are beginning to, make music for. their own pleasure again. With reference to the early 16th and i7th century music which he introduces ‘to his audiences, Mr. Grainger vehemently stresses. the fact that his interest. in such music is in ne. sense antiquarian-that he enjoys the sheer

. musicality of it in the same sense as he enjoys a sincere modern work. This attitude of mind he strongly, recommends to his hearers. In this connection he

irankly owns to his great indebtedness to Mr. Arnold Dolmetsch, of Haslemen, Surrey, and his talented family, whose life-

WOrk it Has Deen to. save the works:.of early English composers from oblivion, and whose festivals of Dlizabethan music are the Mecca of serious-

minded musicians from all civilised countries,

In his New Zealand prosrammes Grainger, -besides a good allowance of classics, will play the works

of the moderns that he has popularised in so man,’ lands. Furthermore, at every concert he will play some of his ewh works, several of which, like "Country Gardens," have broken all: the sales records.for modern pianoforte compositions. When Grieg first heard Percy Grainger play (in 1906) he expressed: his admiration for the then 24-year-old Australian in articles that appeared in Scandinavian newspapers, making Grainger’s name a household word inScandinavia. Amongst Grieg’s friends it was known that copious other statements concerning: Grainger were found in Grieg’s diary, but these statements never appeared in print until quite recently. One of his entries was: "Hven among the very greatest pianists, I do not know. one that I could compare with him." David Monrad Johansen, ‘in writing his monumental book about his great compatriot, had access to -Grieg’s letters, diar» and other documents, and’ has quoted liberally from _ these sources. The following is a translation of some of the passages in D. M. Johansen’s book, in which Percy Grainger is mentioned :- After having met Perey Grainger in London, Grieg noted in his dairy, on May 21, 1906: "And finally Perey _Grainger. played two of my Peasant . Dances (Slaater) in glorious ‘style. ‘Yes, he is a genius,that'is‘sure enough. I am happy to have-won‘such:a. young friend. I have never met anyone who understands me as he does.’ And’ yet he hails from Australia. With. what justification, then, do the critics. assail . my music, as :being ‘too Norwegian? .It.is all. stupidity and: ignorance, noth-.

ing else." And later: "In my present (ailing) condition the memory of these performances: acts upon me like the sun emerging from the clouds." The numbers mentioned will be play_ed by Mr. Grainger from 8YA during hig -tour. A. feature of -Grainger’s pianism is his spécial attention to pedalling, including the use of.the sustaining (or middle) pedal found on certain makes of piano. This sustaining pedal Grainger.deems quite as important as the damper (or right-foot) pedal, its proper.use. permitting a harmonic clearness hitherto unknown to the piano. ' By means of the sustaining pedal certain selected -notes, chords’‘and:so forth, in all’ registers of the instrument, can be sustaine.. quite independently of the * other pedals and all later played notes. This, of course, is a priceless boon in polyphonic playing. Grainger was the first famous virtuoso to study this pedal: deeply, and since he came to . know it he-has remodelled his pedalcraft thoroughly. Mr. Grainger, whose musical en-. thusiasm and magnetic’ personalit: make him particularly fitted -for the task, will also.act-as guest-conductor both in his studio and. public concert appearances ‘throughout New Zealand, and, will also be heard in personal annotations of the works performed. Such is.the pianist’s enthusiasm that _he'is reported: to have haunted Australian broadcasting studios at unusually. early hours of the morning. Hours at a Piano without ceasing have kept his art developed to the highest pitch, and there will be abundant evidence of his skill for New Zealand listeners in the next-few weeks,