Klarinet Archive - Posting 000943.txt from 1998/01

From: Roger Garrett <rgarrett@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: Re Band Music of Percy Grainger
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 20:05:13 -0500

Dan,

We need more of these experiences.......very interesting stuff. I wish I
had the personal experience with Grainger......not old enough.

I enjoy it when people tell me that Irish Tune from County Derry is played
too fast....that the 3.5 minute time listed on the score is way too fast.
Most people play it in 5.5 minutes or slightly less.......quite slow. The
real kicker is that they believe that Percy Grainger would have conducted
it slower had he been in front of a great band.........

Roger Garrett
IWU

On Wed, 21 Jan 1998, Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu wrote:

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