Percy Grainger

Percy Grainger was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1882, made his name in London as a concert pianist, and settled permanently in the United States, where he lived in White Plains, New York. Audiences knew him for his dazzling playing and for short, tuneful pieces based on folk songs, which sold in enormous numbers and paid for everything else he wanted to do.

Everything else was considerable. He lugged a phonograph around the English countryside recording traditional singers, preserving performances that would otherwise be lost. He wrote for unusual combinations, championed the wind band as a serious medium, and in later years built room-sized machines to play what he called free music, sliding tones no human performer could manage.

Start with The Warriors, his biggest and wildest orchestral work, scored for orchestra plus three pianos and described by Grainger as an imaginary ballet.