Episode 249: Percy Grainer and Molly on the Shore
Sep 27, 2026 · 17 min · 8 segments
It's cute, quirky, and totally Grainger! Be sure to like and share with a friend! Music…
Sep 27, 2026 · 17 min · 8 segments
It's cute, quirky, and totally Grainger! Be sure to like and share with a friend! Music…
This was luckily a time in Australia's history where it was actually starting to develop its own arts culture rather than simply having the culture imported from elsewhere.
However, that doesn't play much into what Granger was all about, as we'll come to see.
Granger's father was largely absent from his childhood, but luckily his mother, Rose Aldrich Granger, was incredibly involved.
perhaps to the point of being a bit of a helicopter, though those fortunately weren't invented yet.
Luckily, Rose was an accomplished pianist and she served as Granger's first piano tutor.
He showed great proclivity with the piano from an early age and made his public debut in 1894 at the age of 12.
To further improve his skills, Granger and his mother moved to Germany so he could attend the Hoch Conservatory.
He obviously learned a great deal, but also began to fear the German and Austrian influence of the conservatory was going to taint the northern European style of music that he tended to favor.
So Granger and a few other English students that he met at the conservatory formed the Frankfurt Group, where they strove to differentiate themselves from the German students.
After graduating in 1900, Granger moved, with his mother of course, to London, where he continued to give piano recitals to great acclaim.
Granger was lucky to be one of the first composers we've talked about to live in the time of the gramophone.
So he would take his recording equipment into the country and record song after song.
He praised the folk performers as having much better expression, rhythmic identity, and range than any concert singer he ever heard.
Man, I would love to hear one of those recordings.
Hmm.
I'm sure they're readily out there somewhere.
There's actually quite a few Granger museums and societies.
I'm sure they've got some of these locked away.
Granger also made a name for himself abroad as he toured extensively.
However, he was kind of picky about where he went.
And here's where we have to break some unfortunate news about our shining boy, He was quite a bigoted racist.
He put the English and Scandinavians on such a pedestal that when he married his Swedish-born wife, Ella Viola Strom, he declared her his Nordic princess.
This was luckily a time in Australia's history where it was actually starting to develop its own arts culture rather than simply having the culture imported from elsewhere.
However, that doesn't play much into what Granger was all about, as we'll come to see.
Granger's father was largely absent from his childhood, but luckily his mother, Rose Aldrich Granger, was incredibly involved.
perhaps to the point of being a bit of a helicopter, though those fortunately weren't invented yet.
Luckily, Rose was an accomplished pianist and she served as Granger's first piano tutor.
He showed great proclivity with the piano from an early age and made his public debut in 1894 at the age of 12.
To further improve his skills, Granger and his mother moved to Germany so he could attend the Hoch Conservatory.
He obviously learned a great deal, but also began to fear the German and Austrian influence of the conservatory was going to taint the northern European style of music that he tended to favor.
So Granger and a few other English students that he met at the conservatory formed the Frankfurt Group, where they strove to differentiate themselves from the German students.
After graduating in 1900, Granger moved, with his mother of course, to London, where he continued to give piano recitals to great acclaim.
Granger was lucky to be one of the first composers we've talked about to live in the time of the gramophone.
So he would take his recording equipment into the country and record song after song.
He praised the folk performers as having much better expression, rhythmic identity, and range than any concert singer he ever heard.
Man, I would love to hear one of those recordings.
Hmm.
I'm sure they're readily out there somewhere.
There's actually quite a few Granger museums and societies.
I'm sure they've got some of these locked away.
Granger also made a name for himself abroad as he toured extensively.
However, he was kind of picky about where he went.
And here's where we have to break some unfortunate news about our shining boy, He was quite a bigoted racist.
He put the English and Scandinavians on such a pedestal that when he married his Swedish-born wife, Ella Viola Strom, he declared her his Nordic princess.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
