Percy Grainger
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner
Few figures in the history of Western music are as electrifying and contradictory as Percy Grainger — the Australian-born pianist and composer who stormed concert halls from Melbourne to London, captivated audiences with his virtuosic performances, and simultaneously pursued a radical, freethinking vision of music that placed him decades ahead of his time. John Bird's authoritative biography chronicles the full arc of Grainger's extraordinary life, from his intense, formative years under the iron influence of his mother Rose, through his celebrated friendships with Edvard Grieg and Frederick Delius, to his pioneering work in folk song collection and his remarkable experiments with free music — mechanical compositions that anticipated the age of electronic sound. Bird presents Grainger not merely as a musical eccentric but as a restless, visionary intellect whose unconventional personal life — marked by flamboyant public confessions, masochistic obsessions, and an intense Nordic romanticism — was inseparable from his artistic output. Written with meticulous scholarly rigour yet driven by a compellingly readable narrative voice, the biography illuminates the deep tensions between Grainger's celebrated public persona and his turbulent inner world. For anyone drawn to the outer edges of musical history, this portrait of a genius who refused every convention leaves a single, burning question: how much further ahead of his era was Percy Grainger than even he knew?
Author: John Bird
Format: Hardback
Genre: Biography
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner
Few figures in the history of Western music are as electrifying and contradictory as Percy Grainger — the Australian-born pianist and composer who stormed concert halls from Melbourne to London, captivated audiences with his virtuosic performances, and simultaneously pursued a radical, freethinking vision of music that placed him decades ahead of his time. John Bird's authoritative biography chronicles the full arc of Grainger's extraordinary life, from his intense, formative years under the iron influence of his mother Rose, through his celebrated friendships with Edvard Grieg and Frederick Delius, to his pioneering work in folk song collection and his remarkable experiments with free music — mechanical compositions that anticipated the age of electronic sound. Bird presents Grainger not merely as a musical eccentric but as a restless, visionary intellect whose unconventional personal life — marked by flamboyant public confessions, masochistic obsessions, and an intense Nordic romanticism — was inseparable from his artistic output. Written with meticulous scholarly rigour yet driven by a compellingly readable narrative voice, the biography illuminates the deep tensions between Grainger's celebrated public persona and his turbulent inner world. For anyone drawn to the outer edges of musical history, this portrait of a genius who refused every convention leaves a single, burning question: how much further ahead of his era was Percy Grainger than even he knew?