Percy Grainger Book

----------------------------------------------------------- This extensively revised edition of John Bird's acclaimed biography of Percy Grainger gives the first circumstantial account of the life and works of one of the strangest figures in twentieth-century music. Behind Grainger's highly original compositional achievements, folksong collecting, and glittering career as a virtuoso concert pianist lay a tragic and chaotic personal life, long domination by his mother, unorthodox sexual predilections, an eccentric athleticism, a demonic spiritual drive, and a wildly inconsistent personal philosophy with Anglo-Saxon obsessions such as his famous "Blue-Eyed English". A list of published compositions, a current discography of performances by Grainger, and a selection of his seminal writings complete what has already proved to be a standard work.