Grainger, Percy

(1882-1961)

   Born in Melbourne, Australia, he was something of a childhood prodigy, giving concerts from the age of 12. He came to English folk *song, after hearing a talk by Lucy *Broadwood, with characteristic energy and enthusiasm, noting 435 songs between April 1905 and August 1909, including children's singing games and sea shanties, most notably in Lincolnshire, but also in Gloucestershire, London, Worcestershire, and Warwickshire. He was only one of several musicians in the field at the time, but was unique in the techniques he adopted and in his belief that the collector should note a whole tune, as scientifically as possible, to identify all the small nuances of rhythm and tone used by the best singers in their performances. For this reason he advocated the use of the phonograph, and 216 of his wax cylinders still survive (in the Library of Congress) as a unique record of traditional singing of the Edwardian period. He even persuaded the Gramophone Company to issue recordings of one of his best Lincolnshire singers, Joseph Taylor of Brigg. Grainger's advocacy of the gramophone did not meet with universal approval amongst the folk-song establishment, although several others did experiment with the new technology, but his detailed and complex attempts to annotate the tunes on paper received even less support. In this he was ahead of his time, and his methods later became commonplace in the field of ethno-musicology. Grainger also collected songs in Denmark, and from the Maori in New Zealand.

   Grainger's piano arrangements of traditional *morris dance tunes such as 'Country Gardens' and 'Shepherds Hey' made him a household name.

   Percy Grainger's work includes 'Collecting with the Phonograph' and 'The Impress of Personality in Traditional Singing', JFSS 3:3 (1908), 147-66. Songs collected by Grainger are published in JFSS 3:3 (1908), 170-242; FMJ 2:5 (1974), 335-51 (plus correction in 3:2 (1976), 171); FMJ 6:3 (1992), 339-58.

   ■ Jane O'Brien, The Grainger English Folk Song Collection (1985); Jane O'Brien, ED&S 44:2 (1982), 18-20; Michael Yates, FMJ 4:3 (1982), 265-75; John Bird, Percy Grainger (1976); Obituaries: JEFDSS 9:2 (1961), 113-4; Journal of the International Folk Music Council 14 (1962), 147-9.