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Work

Percy Grainger

Percy Grainger Composer

Country Gardens, folk song for 2 pianos (BFMS 22)   

Performances: 4
Tracks: 4
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Musicology:
  • Country Gardens, folk song for 2 pianos (BFMS 22)
    Year: 1908-32
    Genre: Other Keyboard
    Pr. Instrument: Piano
This short tune, in the style of an English morris dance, is the most popular individual small piece written by the folk-oriented Australian composer Percy Grainger. As is typical of Grainger's music, he arranged it (or "dished it up, " as he would have said) in several different forms. There are delightful versions for piano four-hands as well as solo piano, for band, and for orchestra. In 1949, conductor Leopold Stokowski proposed to record an album of Grainger's music and asked the composer for new versions of these pieces "in which all the colorful instruments of the modern orchestra could be employed."

Grainger was at first irritated at the implicit criticism that his existing version was not good enough for Stokowski, but the request made him reconsider the original arrangements. In the process he found fresh possibilities in them. The "arrangement for Leopold Stokowski" emphasized the woodwinds and added so many new harmonic twists and additional ideas that it diverged substantially from the more familiar versions, and is regarded by most commentators as the most interesting version of the piece.

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