In a Nutshell [Import]

Percy Grainger (Composer), Simon Rattle (Conductor), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (Orchestra) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Orchestra: City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
• Conductor: Simon Rattle
• Composer: Percy Grainger
• Audio CD (August 19, 1997)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Angel Records
• ASIN: B000002RYM
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #206,947 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. In a nutshell-Ste: I. Arrival Platform Humlet

2. In a nutshell-Ste: II. Gay but Wistful

3. In a nutshell-Ste: III. Pastoral

4. In a nutshell-Ste: IV. The Gum-Suckers March

5. Train Music

6. Country Gardens: English Morris Dance Tune

7. La Vallee des cloches (Miroirs)

8. Linolnshire Posy: I. Lisbon (Sailor's Song)

9. Linolnshire Posy: II. Horkstow Grange (The Miser and His Man-a local tragedy)

10. Linolnshire Posy: III. Rufford Park Poachers (Poaching Song)

11. Linolnshire Posy: IV. The Brisk Young Sailor (Who returned to wed...)

12. Linolnshire Posy: V. Lord Melbourne (War Song)

13. Linolnshire Posy: VI. The Lost Lady Found (Dance Song)

14. Pagodes (Estampes)

15. The Warriors: Music to an imaginary ballet for orchestra and three pianos - Malcolm Wilson/Roderick Elms/Wayne Marshall

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wayward Genius, August 5, 2005

By 

M. C. Passarella "lpassarella" (Lawrenceville, GA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: In a Nutshell (Audio CD)

What to make of Percy G. and his music? Actually, the man--piano virtuoso, maker of innovative musical instruments, ethnomusicologist, racist, anti-Semite, alleged sado-masochist--is more interesting to many people than is the music. And the music has just as much of a split personality as the man. The fascinating ballet "The Warriors" is surely more wildly Stravinskian in its use of polyrhythms and emphasis on the percussion section than any other music coming out of England when it was written (1916). Listen to the first movement of "In a Nutshell" from the same year, and you think that this must be the most perfect evocation of the sound of a gamelan orchestra by a Western composer: a fascinating bit of musical orientalism in the vein of Debussy, anticipating the Britten of "Prince of the Pagodas" by four decades or so. But stay tuned for the next movement, and you're in an Edwardian music hall. And we never do get back to the amazing mood of that forward-looking first movement.

There is the visionary "Train Music" (1901) written when Grainger was only 18. Then again, there is Grainger's greatest hit, the orchestral arrangement of his much earlier piano arrangement of "Country Gardens," a lollipop of a work he came to despise.

Probably the most successful music on this disc is "Lincolnshire Posy," a classic suite for military band given its premiere, of all places, in Milwaukee. It's a fine work in the tradition of Gustav Holst's wonderful band suites. But somehow, the regularity of this work doesn't hint at the wayward genius that Grainger evinces in the other large works on this CD.

Rattle and his band take Grainger very seriously, which you need to do in order to produce convincing results. And Grainger would be easy to patronize, but Rattle doesn't do that. Instead, he concentrates on capturing the extraordinary sense of orchestral color Grainger had. He's supported by the bright, wide-ranging sound that always seems to emerge from Birmingham's Symphony Hall. A fascinating disc that, I see, is no longer available from EMI. We can only hope they'll reissue it soon on their budget label.