Editing Percy Grainger (section)

== London years ==
[[File:Percy Grainger by Adolf de Meyer.jpg|thumb|upright|Grainger in 1903, photographed by [[Adolph de Meyer]]]]

=== Concert pianist ===
In London, Grainger's charm, good looks and talent (with some assistance from the local Australian community) ensured that he was quickly taken up as a pianist by wealthy patrons. He was soon performing in concerts in private homes. ''The Times'' critic reported after one such appearance that Grainger's playing "revealed rare intelligence and a good deal of artistic insight".<ref>Bird, pp. 63–65</ref> In 1902 he was presented by the socialite Lillith Lowrey to [[Alexandra of Denmark|Queen Alexandra]], who thereafter frequently attended his London recitals.<ref>Bird, pp. 66 and 73</ref> Lowrey, 20 years Grainger's senior, traded patronage and contacts for sexual favours – he termed the relationship a "love-serve job".<ref name= ODNB /> She was the first woman with whom he had sex; he later wrote of this initial encounter that he had experienced "an overpowering landslide" of feeling, and that "I thought I was about to die. If I remember correctly, I only experienced fear of death. I don't think that any joy entered into it".<ref>Pear ("Grainger: The Formative Years"), p. 6</ref>

In February 1902 Grainger made his first appearance as a piano soloist with an orchestra, playing [[Piano Concerto No. 1 (Tchaikovsky)|Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto]] with the Bath Pump Room Orchestra. In October of that year he toured Britain in a concert party with [[Adelina Patti]], the Italian-born opera singer. Patti was greatly taken by the young pianist and prophesied a glorious career for him.<ref>Bird, p. 69</ref> The following year he met the German-Italian composer and pianist [[Ferruccio Busoni]]. Initially the two men were on cordial terms (Busoni offered to give Grainger lessons free of charge) and, as a result, Grainger spent part of the 1903 summer in Berlin as Busoni's pupil.<ref name= ADB /> However, the visit was not a success; as Bird notes, Busoni had expected "a willing slave and adoring disciple", a role Grainger was not willing to fulfil.<ref>Bird, p. 81</ref> Grainger returned to London in July 1903; almost immediately he departed with Rose on a 10-month tour of Australia, [[New Zealand]] and [[South Africa]], as a member of a party organised by the Australian contralto [[Ada Crossley]].<ref>Bird, pp. 83–88</ref>

=== Emergent composer ===
Before going to London Grainger had composed numerous Kipling settings and his first mature orchestral pieces.<ref name= Txx>Thwaites (ed.) p. xx</ref> In London, when he found time he continued to compose; a letter to Balfour Gardiner dated 21 July 1901 indicates that he was working on his ''Marching Song of Democracy'' (a [[Walt Whitman]] setting), and had made good progress with the experimental works ''[[Train Music]]'' and ''Charging Irishrey''.<ref>Dreyfus (ed.), p. 2</ref> In his early London years he also composed ''Hill Song Number 1'' (1902), an instrumental piece much admired by Busoni.<ref name= Txx /><ref>Bird, p. 79</ref>
In 1905, inspired by a lecture given by the pioneer folk-song historian [[Lucy Broadwood]], Grainger began to collect original folk songs. Starting at [[Brigg]] in [[Lincolnshire]], over the next five years he gathered and transcribed more than 300 songs from all over the country, including much material that had never been written down before. From 1906 Grainger used a phonograph, one of the first collectors to do so, and by this means he assembled more than 200 [[phonograph cylinder|Edison cylinder]] recordings of native folk singers. These activities coincided with what Bird calls "the halcyon days of the 'First English Folksong Revival{{'"}}.<ref>Bird, p. 102</ref>{{#tag:ref|340 original recordings made by Grainger in Lincolnshire, [[Gloucestershire]] and London can be heard on the [[British Library Sound Archive]] website.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Percy Grainger ethnographic wax cylinders – World and traditional music|url=https://sounds.bl.uk/World-and-traditional-music/Percy-Grainger-Collection|accessdate=7 September 2021|website=sounds.bl.uk|archive-date=18 October 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201018042832/https://sounds.bl.uk/World-and-traditional-music/Percy-Grainger-Collection|url-status=dead}}</ref>|group=n}}

As his stature in the music world increased, Grainger became acquainted with many of its leading figures, including [[Ralph Vaughan Williams|Vaughan Williams]], [[Edward Elgar|Elgar]], [[Richard Strauss]] and [[Claude Debussy|Debussy]].<ref name= Simon5 /> In 1907 he met [[Frederick Delius]], with whom he achieved an immediate rapport – the two musicians had similar ideas about composition and harmony, and shared a dislike for the classical German masters.<ref name= C33 /> Both were inspired by folk music;<ref>Palmer, pp. 79–82</ref> Grainger gave Delius his setting of the folk song ''[[Brigg Fair]]'', which the older composer developed into his well-known orchestral rhapsody, dedicated to Grainger.<ref name= C33>Carley, pp. 33–34</ref> The two remained close friends until Delius's death in 1934.<ref>Carley, pp. 49–50</ref>

Grainger first met [[Edvard Grieg]] at the home of the London financier [[Edgar Speyer|Sir Edgar Speyer]], in May 1906.<ref>Bird, p. 116</ref> As a student, Grainger had learned to appreciate the Norwegian's harmonic originality, and by 1906 had several Grieg pieces in his concert repertoire, including the [[Piano Concerto (Grieg)|piano concerto]].<ref name= GE1 /> Grieg was greatly impressed with Grainger's playing, and wrote: "I have written Norwegian Peasant Dances that no one in my country can play, and here comes this Australian who plays them as they ought to be played! He is a genius that we Scandinavians cannot do other than love."<ref>Bird, p. 117</ref> During 1906–07 the two maintained a mutually complimentary correspondence, which culminated in Grainger's ten-day visit in July 1907 to the composer's Norwegian home, "Troldhaugen" near [[Bergen]]. Here the two spent much time revising and rehearsing the piano concerto in preparation for that year's [[Leeds Festival (classical music)|Leeds Festival]]. Plans for a long-term working relationship were ended by Grieg's sudden death in September 1907; nevertheless, this relatively brief acquaintance had a considerable impact on Grainger, and he championed Grieg's music for the rest of his life.<ref name= GE1>{{Cite journal | last = Gillies
 | first = Malcolm
 |author2=Pear, David
 | title = Great Expectations: Grieg and Granger
 | journal = The Musical Times
 | volume = 148
 | issue = 1900
 | pages =7–9
 | date =Autumn 2007
 | doi=10.2307/25434475
 | jstor = 25434475
 }}{{subscription}}</ref>
[[File:GraingerandGrieg1907.jpg|thumb|Grainger (centre), with [[Edvard Grieg]] (left of picture), [[Nina Grieg]] and [[Julius Röntgen]], at "Troldhaugen", July 1907]]
After fulfilling a hectic schedule of concert engagements in Britain and continental Europe, in August 1908 Grainger accompanied Ada Crossley on a second Australasian tour, during which he added several cylinders of Maori and Polynesian music to his collection of recordings.<ref name= Simon5>Simon, pp. 5–6</ref> He had resolved to establish himself as a top-ranking pianist before promoting himself as a composer,<ref name= OMO /> though he continued to compose both original works and folk-song settings. Some of his most successful and most characteristic pieces, such as "[[Mock Morris]]", "Handel in the Strand", "Shepherd's Hey" and "[[Molly on the Shore]]" date from this period. In 1908 he obtained the tune of "Country Gardens" from the folk music specialist [[Cecil Sharp]], though he did not fashion it into a performable piece for another ten years.<ref>Tall, p. 63</ref><ref>Ould, p. 26</ref>

In 1911 Grainger finally felt confident enough of his standing as a pianist to begin large-scale publishing of his compositions. At the same time, he adopted the professional name of "Percy Aldridge Grainger" for his published compositions and concert appearances.<ref name= ODNB /><ref>Thwaites (ed.), p. xxi</ref> In a series of concerts arranged by Balfour Gardiner at London's [[Queen's Hall]] in March 1912, five of Grainger's works were performed to great public acclaim; the band of thirty guitars and mandolins for the performance of "Fathers and Daughters" created a particular impression.<ref>Bird, p. 144</ref> On 21 May 1912 Grainger presented the first concert devoted entirely to his own compositions, at the [[Aeolian Hall, London]];<ref name= OMO /> the concert was, he reported, "a sensational success".<ref>Dreyfus, pp. 454, 458</ref> A similarly enthusiastic reception was given to Grainger's music at a second series of Gardiner concerts the following year.<ref>Bird, p. 147</ref>

In 1905 Grainger began a close friendship with Karen Holten, a Danish music student who had been recommended to him as a piano pupil. She became an important confidante; the relationship persisted for eight years, largely through correspondence.<ref>Dreyfus, p. xiv</ref>{{#tag:ref|The correspondence was conducted largely in Danish, in which Grainger was fluent. His first letter to Holten, dated 12 August 1905, begins "Dear Miss Holten"; by the end of the year she is "My dear Karen". During their long separations Grainger's letters become a diary of his activities.<ref>Dreyfus, pp. 47, 54, 55 and others</ref> |group= n}} After her marriage in 1916, she and Grainger continued to correspond and occasionally met until her death in 1953. Grainger was briefly engaged in 1913 to another pupil, Margot Harrison, but the relationship foundered through a mixture of his mother Rose's over-possessiveness and Grainger's indecision.<ref name= Bird148>Bird, pp. 148–49</ref><ref>Dreyfus, p. 492</ref>