CHAN 9746 Front.qxd 26/7/07 10:46 am Page 1 CHAN 9746 CHANDOS THE GRAINGER EDITION Works VOLUME THIRTEEN for Chamber Works for Ensemble Volume Chamber 13 Ensemble ACADEMY OF ST MARTIN IN THE FIELDS CHAMBER ENSEMBLE G GGRAINGER CHAN 9746 BOOK.qxd 26/7/07 10:47 am Page 2 Percy Grainger (1882–1961) 1 Molly on the Shore [BFMS No. 1]*¶ 3:37 2 My Robin is to the Greenwood Gone*§¶ 4:57 [OEPM No. 2] premiere recording in this version 3 Shepherd’s Hey! [BFMS No. 3]*§¶ 2:06 realised by Barry Peter Ould Frederick E. Morse Frederick 4 Harvest Hymn*§¶ 2:40 5 Arrival Platform Humlet [RMTB No. 7]‡ 3:08 6 Handel in the Strand [RMTB No. 2]*§¶ 4:17 La Scandinavie (Scandinavian Suite)§¶ 15:51 7 I Swedish Air and Dance 2:38 8 II Song of Värmeland 1:51 9 III Norwegian Polska 2:47 10 IV Danish Melody 2:47 Percy Grainger composing on the veranda 11 V Air and Finale on Norwegian Dances 5:32 of 7 Cromwell Place, 1920 (Photograph reproduced courtesy of The Percy Grainger Society.) premiere recording in this version 12 The Nightingale and The Two Sisters*§¶ 3:31 [DFMS No. 10] 13 The Maiden and the Frog [DFMS Unnum.]§¶ 1:00 edited by Barry Peter Ould 2 3 CHAN 9746 BOOK.qxd 26/7/07 10:47 am Page 4 premiere recording 14 The Shoemaker from Jerusalem§¶ 3:18 Grainger: Works for Chamber Ensemble [DFMS No. 6] realised by Barry Peter Ould Solo instrumental chamber music, or as In writing his own style of chamber music 15 *¶ Mock Morris [RMTB No. 1] 3:27 Grainger would call it ‘room-music’, does Grainger makes no mention of Sonata or not occupy a large place in his compositional String Quartet apart from in the early, 16 The Sussex Mummers’ Christmas Carol*¶ 3:40 output. It can be placed into three main formally-titled Theme and Variations for [BFMS No. 17] categories, i) original works, ii) folk-song string quartet. Here, we have a body of premiere recording arrangements and iii) pieces that were not repertoire, which is always novel and 17 Theme and Variations*†‡§ 8:53 originally conceived for this medium but ingenious and shows an aptitude for using edited by Barry Peter Ould which are ‘elastically’ scored, thereby allowing the instruments and combinations to their for a minimum scoring of three or four best advantage. Grainger was one of the first 18 Youthful Rapture [RMTB No. Unnum.]§¶ 5:04 instruments (most usually for piano trio). who broke away from the formal traditions The majority of his pieces for solo normally associated with this genre to give us 19 *§¶ Colonial Song [Sentimental No. 1] 6:02 instrument and piano were written for his fresh insight into this most intimate form of TT 73:00 great friend, the Danish cellist/composer, music making. Grainger’s work is not Herman Sandby for their recitals in the early obscure and heavy like that of some of his Academy of St Martin in the Fields years of the century. Some of the published contemporaries and it can be enjoyed Chamber Ensemble: scores allow these works to be played also by without too much serious effort on the part Kenneth Sillito violin* violin or viola, probably to increase sales of of the listener. Malcolm Latchem violin† the sheet music issued by his publisher, an Molly on the Shore is one of Grainger’s Robert Smissen viola‡ interesting fact when one realises Grainger best-known pieces and this violin and piano did not care for the violin as a solo version is the smallest combination allowed Stephen Orton cello§ ¶ instrument: “I have always loathed the fiddle using parts from his ‘elastic scoring’ setting of Hamish Milne piano (a canary-like twitterer, not a man-high 1914. Fritz Kreisler made his own violin and voice…)”. These feelings were reinforced piano arrangement but Grainger hated it, BFMS – British Folk Music Settings DFMS – Danish Folk Music Settings when Grainger heard Kreisler play in stating it ‘was a thousand times worse than I OEPM – Old English Popular Music St James’s Hall, London and in Philadelphia, had fore-weened (expected), and I had not RMTB – Room-music Tit-bits USA. fore-weened anything good. Apart from its 4 5 CHAN 9746 BOOK.qxd 26/7/07 10:47 am Page 6 winsome folktunes, the charm of my setting and was realised from Grainger’s ‘working’ Holten?) from foreign parts. A ‘humlet’ is the when Grainger accompanied him on a tour lies in shifts from lively to wistful. In my copies. The tune of Shepherd’s Hey! is widely sort of thing one hums to oneself as one of Scandinavia in 1905. The first movement fiddle dish-up, the fiddle has its share of both found throughout England, being a variant paces up and down the platform. Originally makes use of a Swedish air and dance and is moods. In Kreisler’s dish-up the fiddle sawed of the North English air ‘The Keel Row’. conceived for middle-fiddle single or massed followed by the Song of Värmeland, which away, fidgetingly, ALL the time…’. Grainger first noted down a version of the middle-fiddles, Grainger tells us that it could Grainger was to arrange for mixed choir My Robin is to the Greenwood Gone tune in 1906 when he heard it played by also be performed for double-reeded around 1904. The third movement is a from 1912 is a development of a fragment of three fiddlers in the Bedford Morris-Dance instruments of the oboe or sarrusophone Norwegian polska whilst the fourth is the an old English tune (not a folk song) from Team. Grainger uses four variants of the tune family singly or massed, or for a single voice hauntingly beautiful Danish Melody William Chappell’s Popular Music of the to which he adds stylistically authentic or chorus of voices. In 1916 Grainger scored (Mélodie danoise) which was also used as Olden Time. There has been confusion over contrapuntal lines derived from the melody the work for orchestra as the first movement Denmark’s second national anthem. The this in some reference lists to Grainger’s itself. The ‘Hey’ of the title refers to a step of his Suite In A Nutshell. finale is based on Norwegian dances. The music, as the opening words to the song were peculiar to Morris dancing. Handel in the Strand stems from a set of published solo cello part was fingered by included in the published score leading one The root form of Grainger’s tone-work variations Grainger began in 1911, based on Sandby and no doubt, Sandby also had some to suppose that it was a Grainger work for Harvest Hymn is for elastic scoring (from Handel’s The Harmonious Blacksmith input into the more virtuosic aspects of the voice and ensemble, although this is not the two instruments up to a massed orchestra (CHAN 9730). Grainger developed this solo instrumental line. Sketch material case. The work exists in three distinct versions with or without voice or voices). All other material into a work for piano trio, the title remains of a second Scandinavian Suite only, of which the piano trio version recorded versions are offshoots from the root form. name of which was suggested by Grainger’s comprising four movements, which has yet here is the third. In this ‘ramble’, as Grainger The first seventeen bars were sketched in financier friend William Gair Rathbone who to be investigated. called it, the nostalgic tune is extended and 1905 with the title ‘Hymn-y Tune’, whilst had been introduced to Grainger by the The Nightingale and The Two Sisters harmonised with rich chromaticism which the remaining bars were sketched in 1932 at young actor Ernest Thesiger. Rathbone, comprises two Danish folk songs and is gives the work a timeless quality not Segeltorp, Sweden and on board the whom Grainger thought of as a ‘good angel’, recorded here in the smallest instrumental dissimilar to the sound world of his great S.S. ‘Kungsholm’. The final scoring was had a great influence on the young composer, combination allowed for in its ‘elastic friend and fellow composer Frederick Delius. completed on 4–5 August 1932. The trio introducing him to many leading artists and scoring’ version of 1931. In its full orchestral The work is dedicated to Roger Quilter and version recorded here is one of many musicians of the day as well as bringing to version it forms the third movement of his bears the Maori inscription ‘Mo he hoa different room-music combinations afforded his attention the latest music from Europe. Danish Folk-Song Suite. Grainger had, takatapui’ (To my best friend). by Grainger’s unique scoring technique. La Scandinavie (Scandinavian Suite) however, in 1929 also arranged each of the Shepherd’s Hey! was composed, or Arrival Platform Humlet was begun in comprises five movements containing folk folk tunes separately in versions for either ‘tone-wrought’, by Grainger between 1908 Liverpool Street and Victoria railway stations and traditional music from Denmark, violin, viola or cello and harmonium, or and 1909 and revised in 1911. The version in February 1908 when the composer Norway and Sweden, and was written for violin and cello with pipe-organ for piano trio recorded here dates from 1913 awaited the arrival of his sweetheart (Karen Grainger’s friend Herman Sandby to play accompaniment. 6 7 CHAN 9746 BOOK.qxd 26/7/07 10:47 am Page 8 The Maiden and the Frog (Jomfruen og the morning after seeing Lionel Monkton’s A performance of this work was arranged by band.