- Grainger composed this piece in 1904. At the time he was based in London as a concert pianist and piano instructor.1
- He was also collecting, recording and transcribing folksongs at the time, and many of his popular folk-influenced works date from this period.2
- Though based in London, Grainger composed this work during a visit to Denmark.3
- Grainger was interested in “Nordic” culture and made multiple visits to Denmark during his life, where he collected folk music (he composed a Danish Folk-Music Suite in 1928).4
- Colleen Dhas was first performed by an impromptu ensemble of amateur musicians from the Danish village where Grainger was staying. His host, a doctor, played the flute, and they were joined by an English horn, harp and strings.5
- Colleen Dhas is Gaelic for “pretty maid.” Grainger found the tune in Thomas Moore’s 10 volume collection of Irish Melodies, ed. Charles Villiers Stanford in 1895.6
Sources
- Malcolm Gillies and David Pear, “Grainger, (George) Percy,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed October 10, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000011596.
- Ibid.
- Kay Dreyfus, Percy Grainger Music Collection Part I: Music by Percy Aldridge Grainger (Melbourne: Grainger Museum, University of Melbourne, 1978), 102, accessed October 15, 2019, https://grainger.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/2116876/graingercollectionpart1.pdf.
- Gillies and Pear, “Grainger, (George) Percy,” Grove Music Online.
- Steven Lloyd, “Colleen Dhas (1904)—orchestra,” in A Source Guide to the Music of Percy Grainger, Thomas P. Lewis, ed. (White Plains, New York: Pro-Am Music Resources, 1991), The Percy Grainger Society, accessed October 15, 2019, http://www.percygrainger.org/prognot2.htm.
- Ibid.
Cut IDs
48799