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.
Irish Reel
for: Concert band
Score, Parts
Item no.: 193563
for: String orchestra
Score, Parts
Item no.: 1382145
for: String orchestra
Score, Parts
Item no.: 1378475
for: Concert band
Score, Parts
Item no.: 1069914
for: Youth concert band
Score, Parts
Item no.: 677869
for 2 pianos, 6 hands
for: 2 Klaviere 6-händig
Music score
Item no.: 750172
after J.S. Bach's "Sheep may Graze in Safety"
for: Piano
Music score
Item no.: 750171
Edition Schott
for: Violin, piano
Music score
Item no.: 782085
from "Tribute to Foster"
for: Piano
Music score
Item no.: 782328
for: Piano
Music score
Item no.: 733732
for: Piano
Item no.: 177056
for: Concert band
Score
Item no.: 926766
for: Concert band
Score
Item no.: 925042
for: Concert band
Set of parts
Item no.: 924892
for: Concert band
Score
Item no.: 928612
for: Concert band
Set of parts
Item no.: 928493
for: Concert band
Score
Item no.: 927144
for: Concert band
Score, Parts
Item no.: 925539
for: Concert band
Einzelstimme
Item no.: 1078176
Percussion II
for: Concert band
Einzelstimme
Item no.: 1077696
for: Concert band
Einzelstimme
Item no.: 1076994
Eine Kurzbiographie und Graingers Werke für Blasorchester
Book (softcover)
Item no.: 796052
für Klavier
for: Piano
Music score
Item no.: 381626
for: Concert band
Score, Parts
Item no.: 1378663
for: Concert band
Score, Parts
Item no.: 1065158
for piano
for: Piano
Music score
Item no.: 748744
British Folk-Music Settings No. 1 (Revised Edition)
for: 2 violins, viola, cello (string quartet)
Score, Parts
Item no.: 741673
for: Piano
Item no.: 1546304
for violin and piano
for: Violin, piano
Music score
Item no.: 726173
for: Piano 6 hands
Item no.: 355023
for: Blechblasorchester
Score, Parts
Item no.: 432760
for: 2 Klaviere 6-händig
Item no.: 646772
Edition Schott
for: Flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon (wind quintet)
Score
Item no.: 748779
for: 2 trumpets, horn, trombone, tuba (quintet)
Score
Item no.: 1193721
for: Concert band
Score, Parts
Item no.: 1004837
for: Concert band
Score, Parts
Item no.: 684445
for: Concert band
Set of parts
Item no.: 924419
for: Concert band
Score
Item no.: 923251
for: Concert band
Score
Item no.: 927163
for: Symphonic orchestra
Score, Parts
Item no.: 923327
for: Concert band
Score
Item no.: 903159
for: Concert band
Einzelstimme
Item no.: 1077853
for: Concert band
Einzelstimme
Item no.: 1077338
for: Concert band
Einzelstimme
Item no.: 1077137
for: Flötenquartett
Score, Parts
Item no.: 1191282
for: Concert band
Einzelstimme
Item no.: 1077289
for: Concert band
Einzelstimme
Item no.: 1076965
for: Concert band
Score, Parts
Item no.: 1381736
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