Percy Grainger In Performance - Grieg, Grainger, Schumann

Whether performing Grieg, Grainger, or Schumann, Grainger himself seizes on the music's rifts: while he can produce a fetching cantabile, he tends to disturb the surface by jabbing at the accompaniments, shifting mood without preparation, sharpening the rhythmic profile (a special boon in the Schumann Symphonic Etudes), and grabbing on to small details. The piano part of the orchestral In a Nutshell is not really a solo opportunity—but Grainger uses it as a platform to rail against the orchestra, snapping out his accents in a way that turns the music violent... Echt Grainger is certainly what we get on the Music & Arts CD... However, I can't help regretting Music & Arts's choices when they put together this CD. I have no complaints about the performances themselves. Grainger's antisentimental roughening of the Grieg (modeled, in part, on his mentor Grieg's own readings) is the most vital I know; and despite the sprinkle (and occasional downpour) of wrong notes, this particular performance (once available on an International Piano Archives LP) is arguably the best representation (he never made a studio account) that has survived. But why couple it with the commercial studio recordings of the Schumann works, which have long been widely available from both Pearl and Biddulph?

Still, Maggi Payne's transfers are good, too...and former Fanfare colleague Kevin Bazzana's elaborate essay serves as a model for the kind of annotation that [others] should be providing...

-- Peter J. Rabinowitz, FANFARE [3/1998]