The Grainger Edition Volumes 1-19 [special price]

The Grainger Edition Volumes 1-19 [special price] cover $99.00 Out of Stock
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GRAINGER
The Grainger Edition Volumes 1-19 [special price]
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Richard Hickox, with Penelope Thwaites (piano)

[ Chandos Grainger Edition / 19 CD Box Set ]

Release Date: Sunday 20 February 2011

This item is currently out of stock. It may take 6 or more weeks to obtain from when you place your order as this is a specialist product.

"Nothing here sounds, tired, routine or gap-filling dull. And certainly Grainger emerges as far more than pretty, cosy or genteel; more a case of romantic, folksy, dangerous, exultant, tumultuous and, yes, sentimental."
(MusicWeb Feb 2011)

To mark the fiftieth anniversary of Percy Grainger's death in 1961, Chandos are re-issuing The Grainger Edition, Volumes 1 - 19, in a nineteen-disc box set, which is available at a very special price: 19 CDs for the price of 4. The box set demonstrates the extraordinary range of Grainger's compositional styles, including orchestral works, works for wind orchestra and for chorus and orchestra, solo songs, works for chamber ensemble, as well as works for solo piano, here performed by Penelope Thwaites. On Volume 16, Works for Solo Piano 1 (CHAN 9895), Fanfare wrote: 'Rarely has the precociousness of his [Grainger's] talent been better demonstrated than on this new disc… the rarities, like the more familiar pieces, are played with unapologetic conviction. Penelope Thwaites paints the music in bold strokes… a major contribution to the Grainger discography.'

Grainger, the Australian-born composer and pianist, was one of music's most original voices and his compositions, especially his arrangements of folksongs, include some of the world's most well-loved pieces. He studied piano from an early age and, by the time he reached the age of twenty, had already thought out or formulated the majority of his compositions. The following years saw him feverishly reworking and re-arranging these pieces for different forces; in fact it was Grainger who conceived the idea of 'elastic' scoring: a work having an almost limitless number of performable versions, all showing a wonderful sense of instrumental colouring. In his various approaches to a single work, Grainger would explore the possibilities of instrumentation from solo piano to wind band and to full orchestra, harmonic textures varying from simple support of the well-known melody to highly contrapuntal settings involving unusual harmonic progressions.

An enthusiastic participant in the English folksong movement, Grainger collected more than 500 folksongs on which he drew both for his impressive original works and for his imaginative arrangements, 'Country Gardens' and 'Molly on the Shore' being among the best-known. His involvement with British folksong led Grainger to cherish the voice, which became an essential ingredient in his music, and as an arranger of folksongs he was hard to surpass, Benjamin Britten exclaiming: 'In the art of folksong arrangements, Grainger is my master!'

Towards the end of his life, Grainger became fascinated with the idea of 'Free Music'; music not limited by time or pitch intervals. The mechanical devices he created in partnership with the scientist Burnett Cross are today regarded as crude forerunners to the modern electronic synthesiser. Grainger's huge collection of musical materials, instruments and musical devices were eventually housed in a building in the grounds of the University of Melbourne. The Grainger Museum, as it is now generally known, is today a veritable treasure trove, invaluable for the exploration of Grainger's vast compositional output.

Tracks:

Youthful Suite
Molly on the Shore
Irish Tune from County Derry 'Danny Boy'
Shepherd's Hey
Country Gardens, version A
Early One Morning
Handel in the Strand
Mock Morris
Dreamery
The Warriors
Molly on the Shore
(for string quartet)
Lord Peter's Stable-Boy
(for violin, cello, piano & harmonium)
The Shoemaker from Jerusalem
(for flute, trumpet, violin, viola, cello, double bass & piano (four hands))
Hubby and Wifey
(for mezzo-soprano, baritone, cello & two guitars)
The Only Son
(for string quartet & harmonium)
Ye Banks and Braes o' Bonnie Doon
(for two violins, viola, cello & harmonium)
Four Settings from Songs of the North
Six Settings of Rudyard Kipling
Hard-Hearted Barb'ra (H)Ellen
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: The Secret of the Sea
Arthur Conan Doyle: Sailor's Chanty
Shallow Brown
The Widow's Party
The Sea-Wife
The running of shindand
We Have Fed Our Sea for a Thousand Years
Tiger-Tiger!
The Love Song of Har Dyal
Country Gardens
The Immovable Do (The Cyphering C)
Mock Morris
Collean Dhas
Scotch Strathspey and Reel
Dreamery
Colonial Song
My Robin Is to the Greenwood Gone
Harvest Hymn
Handel in the Strand
Lord Maxwell's Goodnight
The Lost Lady Found
Nine Settings of Rudyard Kipling
Three Settings of Robert Burns
Four Settings from Songs of the North
The Power of Love
The Twa Corbies
A. C. Swinburne - A Reiver`s Neck-Verse
Lord Maxwell's Goodnight
Mock Morris
The Power of Love
Died for Love
Love Verses from 'The Song of Solomon'
Shepherd's Hey
Early One Morning
The Three Ravens
Scherzo
Youthful Rapture
Random Round (Set version)
The Merry King
O Gin I Were Where Gadie Rins
Skye Boat Song
Danny Deever
Irish Tune from County Derry 'Danny Boy'
Dollar and a Half a Day
Molly on the Shore

and much much more