Shortly before his death, Percy Grainger lodged over twenty unpublished sketches in his Australian museum. This book draws exclusively from these sketches, revealing a portrait of the composer's life. With such titles as 'The Aldridge-Grainger-Stroom saga', 'Thanks', 'Ere-I-forget', 'The love-life of Helen and Paris' , and 'Anecdotes', these manuscripts were intended as precursors to Grainger's autobiography, My Wretched Tone-life, which he commenced only in his final years. Expertly shaping these sketches, the editors have created a self-portrait along the lines that Grainger himself had intended. The volume first introduces Grainger's forebears, parents, friends, wife, and himself before moving on to his views on composition, performance, and the musical world. In these sketches, Grainger addresses such topics as racial and national identity, the meaning of work, physical culture, language reform, sexual practice, and artistic patronage. Grainger also probes the nature of musical genius, discussing a broad range of composers including Igor Stravinsky, Thomas Beecham, Frederick Delius, Edvard Grieg, Charles Stanford, Cyril Scott, Fritz Kreisler, Donald Tovey, Ferruccio Busoni, and Balfour Gardiner. Among the works of his own that Grainger most featured are his The Warriors - Music for an Imaginary Ballet, Colonial Song, the Lincolnshire Posy series of band pieces, his greatest 'hit' Country Gardens, and his many settings of English folk-music. (Book jacket)
