Percy Grainger
THE POWER OF LOVE for piano
Bardic Edition BDE363
Transcribed for piano solo by Penelope Thwaites
"The Power of Love" is the first movement of the Danish Folk-Music Suite and is a setting of a Folksong gathered with a phonograph in Jutland by Evald Tang Kristensen and myself during the years 1922-1927. It tells the story of a maiden whose clandestine lover is attacked by her seven brothers, all of whom he kills. Returning from this encounter, he tells her that he has killed her seven brothers, to which she answers: "Even had you killed my father as well, I still would follow you." The last verse of the ballad (the only one which the original folksinger, Mrs Ane Nielsen Post could remember) comments symbolically on love’s ruthless sway and it is the mood of this last verse that is mirrored in my setting. Percy Aldridge Grainger, Summer 1946
"The Power of Love" is the first movement of the Danish Folk-Music Suite and is a setting of a Folksong gathered with a phonograph in Jutland by Evald Tang Kristensen and myself during the years 1922-1927. It tells the story of a maiden whose clandestine lover is attacked by her seven brothers, all of whom he kills. Returning from this encounter, he tells her that he has killed her seven brothers, to which she answers: "Even had you killed my father as well, I still would follow you." The last verse of the ballad (the only one which the original folksinger, Mrs Ane Nielsen Post could remember) comments symbolically on love’s ruthless sway and it is the mood of this last verse that is mirrored in my setting. Percy Aldridge Grainger, Summer 1946
