Self-Portrait of Percy Grainger

Abstract

Self-Portrait of Percy Grainger Edited by Malcolm Gillies, David Pear, and Mark Carroll, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2006 The name of Percy Grainger is surely familiar to every experienced band musician and conductor, and his compositions maintain an honored place in the repertoire. This volume is the latest in a succession of significant volumes of research dedicated to Grainger's life and music, and the notable Australian musicologists who assembled the work are seasoned Grainger scholars. Although Grainger wrote an introduction to an autobiography, "My Wretched Tone-Life," in 1951> and an explanatory essay, 'Why "My Wretched Tone-Life"?' in 1953, he never completed the autobiography itself. So, the Self-Portrait of Percy Grainger, and other volumes created from the half million words of autobiographical legacy Grainger penned, will have to serve as our window into the mind of this extraordinary musician. This work draws its material from the unpublished essays Grainger placed in his Australian museum before his death in 1961. The editors suggest that these manuscripts were the sketches from which he intended to craft his autobiography. The writings are personal, revealing tracts that were often handwritten in train stations, hotels, and hospital rooms. The essays cover a wide variety of topics, and Grainger's free-ranging writing style has made it impractical to organize these materials only by chronology or main theme. Ultimately, the writings were selected and arranged to describe Percy Grainger, the musician of colorful opinions and uncommon tastes, with an eye toward the information that readers of the 21st century might want to know. Grainger's use of language must have posed a major challenge for the editors. Because of his fondness for things Nordic, Grainger often skipped between English and Danish in these writings, and occasional words in Swedish are found. Statements made to him in German were often transferred to paper in German, and there is a smattering of Latin, Greek, French, and Maori in these sketches. The most formidable challenge was presented by Grainger's use of Nordic English, a language of his own invention. Fortunately, the Self-Portrait is presented to the reader in English and is replete with editorial clarifications and frequent annotations to assist in comprehension. The Self-Portrait is divided into Part I (The Man) and Part II (The Musician) with twenty photographs placed between the two parts. The volume begins with a detailed listing of the contents, a list of the illustrations (photographs), and an excellent chronology of the significant events in Grainger's life. The "Introduction" by Malcolm Gillies is particularly enlightening, and readers are encouraged to read it before moving on to the main text. …