Klarinet Archive - Posting 000928.txt from 1998/01

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu>
Subj: Re Band Music of Percy Grainger
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 20:04:58 -0500

I knew Percy very well. To a considerable degree I came into his
life as a young man meeting a much older one, in the same way that
he came in Grieg's life. And when I told him that I very much
enjoyed playing the inner voices of his music, particularly the
bass clarinet part, he told me that he also was far more interested
in the harmony than the melody.

And for your information, he told me that he always considered
his Hill Song Number 2 as his best band work. He never said
a word about the fact that the misprint in Lincolnshire Posy's
tempo for Rufford Park Poachers has invariably resulted in that
movement always getting played twice as fast as it should be
played.

I took Percy and Ella Grainger to their very last band concert
where Percy's music was highlighted by Edwin Franko Goldman
at a concert in Central Park, NYC around 1959. He became too
ill to travel very much after that.

He was a great guy. I still miss him and think of him often.
I asked him if he would write a piece for solo clarinet for
me and he said, "No. I don't write pieces for solo instruments.
It's undemocratic." I did not remind him of "Over the Hills
and Far Away" which has a big piano part that he wrote for
himself.

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Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
Rosanne Leeson, Los Altos, California
leeson@-----.edu
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