Percy Grainger
WALKING TUNE (SIMPLIFIED) for piano
Bardic Edition BDE1159
Simplified version for piano solo by Barry Peter Ould.
Composer's Note: I composed the little tune on which this piece is based as a whistling accompaniment to my tramping feet while on a three day’s walk in Western Argyllshire (Scottish Highlands) in the summer of 1900. At that time I had just turned 18 - I was deeply in love with thoughts of the Celtic world. I had already made settings of several Scottish, Irish and Welsh folksongs. So I was delighted to find that most of the older folk in the glens of West Argyle spoke only or mainly Gaelic - though most of the children spoke both Gaelic and English.
It was in this pro-Celtic mood that I worked up my walking tune into the Walking Tune for wind five-some in 1905. In ending the composition with the mild discord G, D, B, E, G I was repeating the formula first used at the end of my orchestral Rustic Dance, composed in 1899 (now part of my Youthful Suite for orchestra) and in the close of my part-song At Twilight. In 1899 this was a drastic innovation. But the tonic triad with the sixth of the scale added has since become the expectable ending of thousands of orchestrations of popular music. Percy Aldridge Grainger
Composer's Note: I composed the little tune on which this piece is based as a whistling accompaniment to my tramping feet while on a three day’s walk in Western Argyllshire (Scottish Highlands) in the summer of 1900. At that time I had just turned 18 - I was deeply in love with thoughts of the Celtic world. I had already made settings of several Scottish, Irish and Welsh folksongs. So I was delighted to find that most of the older folk in the glens of West Argyle spoke only or mainly Gaelic - though most of the children spoke both Gaelic and English.
It was in this pro-Celtic mood that I worked up my walking tune into the Walking Tune for wind five-some in 1905. In ending the composition with the mild discord G, D, B, E, G I was repeating the formula first used at the end of my orchestral Rustic Dance, composed in 1899 (now part of my Youthful Suite for orchestra) and in the close of my part-song At Twilight. In 1899 this was a drastic innovation. But the tonic triad with the sixth of the scale added has since become the expectable ending of thousands of orchestrations of popular music. Percy Aldridge Grainger
