Editing Percy Grainger (section)

=== Childhood ===
[[File:Melbourne international exhibition 1880.jpg|thumb|An 1880 lithograph of the Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne, venue for Percy Grainger's early concerts, October 1894]]
Except for three months' formal schooling as a 12-year-old, during which he was bullied and ridiculed by his classmates, Percy was educated at home.<ref name= Simon2>Simon, pp. 2–3</ref> Rose, an [[autodidacticism|autodidact]] with a dominating presence, supervised his music and literature studies and engaged other tutors for languages, art and drama. From his earliest lessons, Percy developed a lifelong fascination with [[Nordic countries|Nordic culture]]; writing late in life, he said that the Icelandic [[Grettis saga|''Saga of Grettir the Strong'']] was "the strongest single artistic influence on my life".<ref>Bird, p. 11</ref><ref name= ODNB>{{cite web|author-link= Malcolm Gillies|last= Gillies|first= Malcolm|title= Grainger, Percy Aldridge|url= http://www.oxforddnb.com/index/41/101041081 |work=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online|year= 2004}} {{subscription}}</ref><ref name= OMO>{{cite dictionary|last1= Gillies|first1= Malcolm |last2=Pear |first2=David|title= Grainger, (George) Percy (Aldridge)|url= http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/11596|dictionary= Oxford Music Online|year= 2007}} {{subscription}}</ref> As well as showing precocious musical talents, he displayed considerable early gifts as an artist, to the extent that his tutors thought his future might lie in art rather than music.<ref>Bird, p. 13</ref> At the age of 10 he began studying piano under Louis Pabst, a German-born graduate of the Moscow Conservatory, Melbourne's leading piano teacher. Grainger's first known composition, "A Birthday Gift to Mother", is dated 1893.<ref name= ADB /> Pabst arranged Grainger's first public concert appearances, at Melbourne's Masonic Hall in July and September 1894. The boy played works by [[Johann Sebastian Bach|Bach]], [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]], [[Robert Schumann|Schumann]] and [[Domenico Scarlatti|Scarlatti]], and was warmly complimented in the Melbourne press.<ref name= Bird20>Bird, pp. 20–22</ref>

After Pabst returned to Europe in the autumn of 1894, Grainger's new piano tutor, Adelaide Burkitt, arranged for his appearances at a series of concerts in October 1894 at Melbourne's [[Royal Exhibition Building]]. The size of this enormous venue horrified the young pianist; nevertheless, his performance delighted the Melbourne critics, who dubbed him "the flaxen-haired phenomenon who plays like a master".<ref>Bird, p. 23</ref> This public acclaim helped Rose to decide that her son should continue his studies at the [[Hoch Conservatory]] in [[Frankfurt]], Germany, an institution recommended by William Laver, head of piano studies at Melbourne's Conservatorium of music. Financial assistance was secured through a fund-raising benefit concert in Melbourne and a final recital in Adelaide, after which mother and son left Australia for Europe on 29 May 1895.<ref>Bird, pp. 24–25</ref> Although Grainger never returned permanently to Australia, he maintained considerable patriotic feelings for his native land,<ref name= Scott /> and was proud of his Australian heritage.<ref name= ADB />