- Percy Grainger created sketches for this piece in 1951,1 planning a vocal setting for voice and “room-music.”2
- Grainger used the term “room-music” instead of “chamber music” because, according to his biographer Thomas C. Slattery, Grainger was an “English language purist.”3
- The version in this recording was realized by David Tall. This recording constitutes the premiere of this version.4
- The original melody is a Danish folk song collected by Grainger’s friend, the Danish folklorist Evald Tang Kristensen. The two traveled together in Denmark several times, collecting folk songs.5
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.
- Barry Peter Ould, liner notes to Grainger: Vol. 11 – Works for Chorus & Orchestra 4, Pamela Helen Stephen, Johan Reuter, Danish National Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, Jesper Grove Jorgensen, Richard Hickox, Chandos 9721, CD, 1999.
- Thomas C. Slattery, Percy Grainger: The Inveterate Innovator(Evanstone, IL: Instrumentalist Co., 1974), 220.
- Ould, liner notes to Grainger: Vol. 11 – Works for Chorus & Orchestra 4.
- Elinor Wrobel, Percy Grainger: The Passionate Folklorist and Ethnomusicologist (Melbourne: The Grainger Museum, 1999), 73, accessed October 15, 2019, https://grainger.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/2036659/PG_and_Folk_Music_catalogue.pdf.
Cut IDs
17266