Percy Aldridge Grainger was born in Brighton, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 8 July 1882. His father, John Harry Grainger (1855-1917), emigrated from England to Australia in 1877 where he married Rosa (Rose) Annie, née Aldridge in 1880 and went on to achieve notable success as an architect. John and Rose separated when Percy was eight, and Rose took over the home tutoring of Percy, including piano instruction.
Born George Percy Grainger, in the early 1890s Percy studied piano and elementary music under Louis Pabst and Adelaide Burkett and began performing in public in 1894. Accompanied by his mother, his residence in Australia ended when in 1895 he moved to Germany to pursue his music studies at Dr Hoch's Conservatorium in Frankfurt-am-Main. Karl Klimsch became Grainger's composition teacher, and also encouraged Percy's passion to paint. Grainger's Conservatorium studies brought him in touch with Cyril Scott; Balfour Gardiner; Norman O'Neil; Roger Quilter; and Herman Sandby, all of whom influenced each other and remained life-long friends.
In 1900, Grainger moved again, this time travelling to England where, between May 1901 and August 1914, he lived in London, teaching, composing and conducting, and quickly established his career as a concert pianist attracting acclaim and royal patronage. During these years he toured in England with Adelina Patti (1843-1919), and in England, Australasia and South Africa with singer, Ada Crossley (1874-1929), as well as performing in Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Finland, Russia and Scandinavia. Grainger's London based years also saw other important developments. His piano studies with Ferruccio Busoni (1903); his brief but important friendship with Edvard Grieg (1904-1907); his most intense folk-song collecting activities; the beginning of his devoted friendship with Delius; the start of his career as a recording artist (1908) and the publication and first performance of his compositions. Often walking from concert to concert whilst on tour and making his own clothing from towelling material were but two expressions of Grainger's athleticism and individuality.
In 1914 Percy and Rose Grainger moved to America where Percy continued his successful concert career until the entry of the USA in the First World War, when he joined the 15th Band of the Coast Artillery Corps. Percy adopted US citizenship in 1918. At the end of the war, Percy resumed his concert career, but this was interrupted by his mother's death in 1922. At the climax of ill-health and personal problems, Rose Grainger took her own life amid rumours that she and Percy were having an incestuous relationship, which both strongly denied.
In 1926 Percy Grainger met Ella Viola Strom and two years later they married on the stage of Hollywood Bowl before a paying congregation of 20,000 during the interval of a concert of music composed and conducted by Grainger. During 1932-1933 he accepted his only formal teaching post when he became head of the Music Department at New York University. Grainger's concert career continued until a few months before his death, but as time passed, he sought less the accolade of an internationally famous pianist and more a platform and sympathetic hearing for his compositional output. The last years of his life were spent largely working towards a physical realisation of his ideals for a 'Free Music' and in pursuit of this he developed, along with Burnett Cross, a handful of extraordinary mechanical and electronic instruments. Percy Grainger continued to perform publicly up to a few months before his death, 20 February 1961, in New York.
Sources: John Bird's material within the collection; Kay Dreyfus, 'Grainger, George Percy (1882-1961)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/grainger-george-percy-6448/text11037 (correct Oct 2015). Also the website of the Grainger Museum, University of Melbourne, http://grainger.unimelb.edu.au/ (correct Oct 2015).
John Bird was born 11 November 1941 in Walsall, West Midlands, son of a brewer. After a grammar school education, he held a variety of jobs and pursued careers in the hotel industry and as a self-employed, free-lance writer and lecturer. His writing includes 'Percy Grainger', a biography first published London: Elek, 1976, contributions to several other books and many musical and literary journals and newspapers. He has broadcast in Britain, Canada and Australia (source: adapted from notes supplied by the donor).
