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.
English morris dance
Concert Band
for: Concert band
Score, Parts
Item no.: 1061982
for: Concert band
Score, Parts
Item no.: 1063742
for: Concert band
Score, Parts
Item no.: 891348
for: Concert band
Score, Parts
Item no.: 1381308
for: Male choir
Choir score
Item no.: 1545142
for: Piano
Item no.: 1677046
for: 2 pianos
Item no.: 1545336
for: Violin, cello, piano (piano trio)
Score, Parts
Item no.: 1545803
for: Piano 4 hands
Ensemble score
Item no.: 661836
on Tchaikovsky's "Flower-Waltz"
for: Piano
Music score
Item no.: 733123
Fanfare
for: Blechblasorchester
Score, Parts
Item no.: 750273
for brass band arranged by Dennis Wright
for: Blechblasorchester
Score, Parts
Item no.: 750181
version for two voices and piano or piano alone
for: Sopran, Tenor und Klavier oder Klavier allein
Partitur This edition can be used as additional vocal scores for the other versions of Colonial Song
Item no.: 750180
for: Concert band
Einzelstimme Horn I und II
Item no.: 752209
for: 2 pianos
Item no.: 261160
for: Concert band
Score
Item no.: 888671
for: Concert band [youth concert band]
Score, Parts
Item no.: 904960
for: Concert band
Score
Item no.: 778836
for: Concert band
Score
Item no.: 927156
for: Concert band
Score
Item no.: 927803
for: Concert band
Score
Item no.: 927395
for: Concert band [youth concert band]
Score, Parts
Item no.: 813080
for: Flexible ensemble (5 voices); drums ad lib.
Score, Parts
Item no.: 697736
for: Concert band
Einzelstimme
Item no.: 1078103
for: Concert band
Einzelstimme
Item no.: 1077156
for: Concert band
Score, Parts
Item no.: 1379817
for: Concert band
Score, Parts
Item no.: 1384783
Large Score
for: Concert band
Conductor score
Item no.: 897093
for: Youth concert band
Score, Parts
Item no.: 947904
for: Piano
Music score
Item no.: 740690
Passacaglia on an English Folksong
for: 2 Klaviere 6-händig
Music score
Item no.: 782313
for: Brass band
Score, Parts
Item no.: 585900
Edition Schott
for: Concert band
Conductors score reduction
Item no.: 748781
a free ramble on J. S. Bach's aria Sheep may Graze in Safety
for: 2 pianos
Noten 2 Ausgaben erforderlich
Item no.: 782337
Edition Schott
for: 2 Klaviere 6-händig
Music score
Item no.: 782332
for: Concert band
Conductors part (C)
Item no.: 355123
for: String orchestra
Score
Item no.: 947839
for: Youth concert band
Score
Item no.: 943014
for: String orchestra
Score
Item no.: 939995
for: Concert band
Score, Parts
Item no.: 1077207
for: Concert band
Score
Item no.: 927151
for: Concert band
Score
Item no.: 926556
for: Concert band
Score
Item no.: 926830
for: Concert band
Score
Item no.: 925255
for: Brass Choir
Score
Item no.: 927178
for: Concert band
Score
Item no.: 898431
for: Symphonic orchestra
Score
Item no.: 924433
for: Symphonic orchestra
Score, Parts
Item no.: 924390
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