Percy Grainger
TWO PRELUDES AND A GIGUE for piano
Bardic Edition BDE907
Prelude in C, Prelude in G and Gigue for piano solo.
Grainger's childhood and early teenage works, edited from his own manuscripts, leave room for musicianly interpretation. In the earliest, written at the age of nine, he was still learning how to write down his music, and at times he confuses musical conventions and symbols. Phrasing is largely missing; dynamics are sparse, pedalling non-existent. While acknowledging his burgeoning creativity, it is clear that these works were awaiting his own editorial hand in later years. Sadly, this never eventuated. Based on my own research and performances, I have presumed to suggest some phrasings and dynamics, as a guide, and I have on occasion re-distributed notes between hands where the composer wrote chords spanning a tenth or more. Grainger himself often recommended "harping" wide chords, although this should be done with discretion. There are times, for example, when it may sound better to take the bass note in a left-hand chord with the pedal (as an acciaccatura or appoggiatura) before playing the remaining notes. His Preludes and Gigue are clearly Bach-inspired, but they are, even at this early stage, recognisably Graingeresque in their characteristic touches of unexpectedness, lyricism and subversive humour. Penelope Thwaites
Grainger's childhood and early teenage works, edited from his own manuscripts, leave room for musicianly interpretation. In the earliest, written at the age of nine, he was still learning how to write down his music, and at times he confuses musical conventions and symbols. Phrasing is largely missing; dynamics are sparse, pedalling non-existent. While acknowledging his burgeoning creativity, it is clear that these works were awaiting his own editorial hand in later years. Sadly, this never eventuated. Based on my own research and performances, I have presumed to suggest some phrasings and dynamics, as a guide, and I have on occasion re-distributed notes between hands where the composer wrote chords spanning a tenth or more. Grainger himself often recommended "harping" wide chords, although this should be done with discretion. There are times, for example, when it may sound better to take the bass note in a left-hand chord with the pedal (as an acciaccatura or appoggiatura) before playing the remaining notes. His Preludes and Gigue are clearly Bach-inspired, but they are, even at this early stage, recognisably Graingeresque in their characteristic touches of unexpectedness, lyricism and subversive humour. Penelope Thwaites
