Percy Grainger (1882-1961) was an Australian-born composer, conductor and concert pianist, who spent his life trying to re-invent the way music was written, viewed and performed. Browse our sheet music and scores, and explore for yourself all his wonderful works today!
Grainger was born in Brighton, near Melbourne, and was home-schooled by his mother for most of his childhood. He began studying the piano at the age of 10, and immediately showed remarkable talent. At the age of 13, he and his mother moved to Frankfurt, so he could study at the Hoch Conservatoire.
After maturing as a musician and a performer, Grainger moved to London, and became more and more sought after as a pianist. He had a fascination for Scandinavian music, and was greatly influenced by Edvard Grieg, who was a lifelong friend and mentor. Grainger dedicated himself to collecting folk music, firstly in the UK, and then Norway and eventually from all around the world.
Due to his overwhelming desire to be the first Australian composer of great worth, when the first world war hit, Grainger moved to the USA. He joined the U.S Army in 1917, and served as a bandsman, playing the saxophone. He became an American citizen in 1918, and the USA was his home for the rest of his life. He toured Europe and Australasia as a concert pianist and accompanist many, many times, he recorded with many record labels (most consistently with Colombia Records), and he never lost sight of his goal to champion Australian Music.
After a lifelong struggle to compose new and innovative works, alongside his folk music arrangements, and a critically acclaimed career as a concert pianist, when the second world war began, Grainger left his New York home, and moved to Springfield, Missouri. He feared that the fighting might hit the East Coast, and he hadn’t achieved his goal of becoming the world’s first internationally renowned, and unequivocally great Australian composer. During the war, he played many charity concerts, to help boost moral.
Grainger’s wish to create new musical forms, and to stretch the boundaries of classical composition, led him to write in many styles, using many techniques. He never conformed to classical structures, and rarely used traditional instrumentation. He was the first aleatoric composer, leaving elements of choice in his scores for the performers, and he tried to create a type of “free music” which did not have regular time signatures, or traditional structures.
As he became more and more frustrated with the lack of progress in his exploration of new musical forms, and his growing feeling that he would never reach his goals as a composer, he began to focus more and more on his work with a young physics teacher, Burnett Cross, to try to invent instruments first mechanically, and later electronically, which could play his “free music”. These “free music machines” were only ever rather limited, and Grainger became more and more depressed, not only by the lack of success in these endeavours, but also in the decline of his piano playing.
One source of joy for Grainger, was his work on military music. His experiences in the USA during both world wars led him to be a great advocate for Wind Ensemble and Brass music, and he wrote a great wealth of repertoire for Concert Band, Brass Band and Marching Band. These range from folk-song arrangements, to original compositions.
As a highly intelligent and eccentric man, Grainger spent many trips to Australia building the Grainger Museum, in the grounds of the University of Melbourne, which he hoped would be an honest and thorough account of his life and work. Despite the museum never being open to the public in his lifetime (only private viewings), it has been restored and is open to the public today.
His life-long search for folk-music is undoubtedly his greatest legacy, and towards the end of his life, he was awarded the St. Olav Medal of Norway for his service to the works of Grieg, and Norwegian Music.
Grainger died in White Plains, New York in 1961, and despite a long and turbulent career as a concert pianist, recording artist, composer, and innovator, he is remembered fondly for his eccentricity and for his wonderful folk music arrangements.
Blasorchester
Direktion
for: Concert band
Direktion
Item no.: 922587
Piano Solo
for: Piano
Music score
Item no.: 316968
for: Concert band
Score
Item no.: 895910
No. 7 Brigg Fair "It was on the fifth of August" (England)
for: gemischter Chor (SATBB) mit Tenor-Solo
Choir score
Item no.: 211097
for: Concert band
Einzelstimme
Item no.: 1077925
for: Concert band
Einzelstimme
Item no.: 1077874
For: Concert Band or Woodwind Choir
for: Concert band
Score, Parts
Item no.: 1552042
for: Concert band
Einzelstimme
Item no.: 1077939
for: Concert band
Einzelstimme
Item no.: 1078332
for: Concert band
Einzelstimme
Item no.: 1077013
for: Concert band
Einzelstimme
Item no.: 1077474
Southern Music
for: Concert band
Score
Item no.: 925758
Southern Music
for: Concert band
Score, Parts
Item no.: 928447
Southern Music
for: Symphonic orchestra
Score
Item no.: 927583
Southern Music
for: Percussion ensemble
Score
Item no.: 928292
Southern Music
for: Symphonic orchestra
Score
Item no.: 927087
for: Organ
Item no.: 462705
Room-Music – Tit-Bits
Concert Version
for: Piano
Music score
Item no.: 355008
Handkerchief Dance
for: Piano
Item no.: 355002
for: Piano
Item no.: 354844
Southern Music
for: Concert band
Score, Parts
Item no.: 926360
Three musical tit-bits
Southern Music
for: Concert band
Score
Item no.: 924875
FJH Starter Series
for: Concert band [youth concert band]
Score, Parts
Item no.: 1109449
Irish Reel
Oversized Score
Southern Music
for: Concert band
Conductor score
Item no.: 924669
Das Warschauer Konzert für 2 Klaviere vierhändig
aus dem R-K-O-Film "Dangerous Moonlight"
for: Piano, orchestra
Piano reduction, solo part
Item no.: 199519
for: Concert band
Score
Item no.: 1009909
Southern Music
for: Concert band
Score
Item no.: 928461
für Blasorchester
Einzelstimme Bass-Saxophon
for: Concert band
Einzelstimme
Item no.: 1632759
No.1 Of "Room-Music Tit-Bits"
for: 10 Flöten
Item no.: 1351988
Passacaglia On An English Folksong
for: Concert band
Score, Parts
Item no.: 1060415
after J.S. Bach 'Sheep May Graze in Safety'
for: Concert band
Score
Item no.: 1690791
for: Concert band
Score, Parts
Item no.: 1077706
for: Concert band
Score
Item no.: 1060647
for: Concert band
Einzelstimme
Item no.: 1038299
for: Concert band
Score, Parts
Item no.: 1078366
for high voice and piano
for: Voice, piano
Item no.: 1544747
No. 6 from Kipling Settings
for: Bariton, Männerchor (oder 4 Männerstimmen) und Klavier
Choir score
Item no.: 1546266
No. 1 from Kipling Settings
for: hohe Männerstimme (Tenor) und Klavier
Item no.: 1545470
Southern Music
for: Concert band
Score
Item no.: 926766
for: Concert band
Score, Parts
Item no.: 1558769
for: Concert band
Audio-CD
Item no.: 1062065
for: Concert band
Einzelstimme
Item no.: 1076700
Southern Music
for: Concert band
Score
Item no.: 928612
for: Concert band
Score, Parts
Item no.: 1069914
for: Klarinettenensemble
Score, Parts
Item no.: 994869
Condensed Score
for: Concert band
Score
Item no.: 927144
Southern Music
for: Concert band
Score, Parts
Item no.: 925539