TITLE: Hill Song No. 2 (1907)

COMPOSER: Percy Grainger (1882-1961)

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Percy Aldridge Grainger (c.1882-1961) was an Australian born composer and pianist. He studied music in Germany. In 1900, he began his career as a concert pianist. In 1907, Grainger was chosen by Grieg to appear as guest soloist in the premiere of Grieg's Concerto in A. His contributions to the wind repertoire are outstanding. He studied in Europe and experimented with many sounds of various instruments. He became great friends with Edvard Grieg, and other composers such as Cage, Varese and Bartok. He gained American citizenship in 1919, after his employment as an United States Army Bandsman during World War I. He was known for his interest in folk songs and melodies. Other works that he has written for wind band include: Lincolnshire Posy, Hill Songs No. 1, Children's March, Colonial Song, Ye Banks and Braes Oh Bonnie Doon and Australian Up-Country Tune to name a few. In Richard Franko Goldman's book, The Wind Band, he nominates the Hill Songs No. 1 & No. 2 as the first major works for the band in the 20th Century.

MOVEMENTS: One

PERFORMANCE TIME: 5' 41"

INSTRUMENTATION: 24 Instruments

• 1 Piccolo, 2 Oboes, 3 Bb Clarinets, 2 Bassoons, 4 Saxes, 3 Trumpets, 4 Horns, 3 Trombones, 1 Euphonium, 1 Tuba

EDITIONS: Available for Purchase

1. MCA Music - c/o Belwin Mills Publishing Company
2. International Percy Grainger Society, 7 Cromwell Place, White Plains, NY 10601

COMPOSITION SKETCH AND MUSICAL CONSIDERATIONS

"My Hill-Songs arose out of thoughts about, and longings for the wildness, the freshness, the purity of hill-countries, hill-peoples and hill-music (the Scottish Highlands and their clansmen, the Himalayas and their hill men, the Scottish and Asiatic bagpipes, etc.). These compositions were part of a back-to-nature urge, and were written as a protest against the tameness of plain countires and plain dwellers and their dullness, samishness and thawartingness of life in town. Musically speaking, my Hill-Songs sought to weave the bagpipe tone type (the skirling darsticness of the "chaunter", the nasal fierceness of the drones) into polyphonic textures.

Hill-Song No. 2 is the outcome of a wish to present the fast, energetic elements of Hill-Song No. 1 as a single-type whole, without contrasting elements of a slower, more dreamy nature. To this end, the bulk of the fast energetic elements of Hill-Song No. 1 (composed 1901-1902) were used together with about the same extent of new material of a like character composed in London in April, 1907, in which month the whole was put into shape.

In the dedication of this composition to my folk hero friend, H. Balfour Gardiner (to his fight-winning championship of British music and his tree-planting for the future good of the English countryside)."

--Quotation by Percy Grainger

SELECTED RECORDINGS:

RELATED WEBSITES:

Grainger Society- http://www.tisl.co.uk/grainger/grainger.htm

Grainger Catalogue - http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/catalogue/grainger.html

Grainger Biography http://www.lib.unimelb.edu.au/collections/grainger/people/grainger.circle/percy.grainger/percy.grainger.html

Grainger's Otherside - http://www.classiccd.co.uk/composers/features/grainger/grainger.html