Download or read book Percy Grainger written by John Bird and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 1999-03-18 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This acclaimed biography of Percy Grainger gives the first circumstantial account of one of the strangest figures in twentieth-century music. Behind the glittering public image lay a tragic and chaotic personal life — mother-domination, sexual unorthodoxy, eccentric athleticism, a demonic spiritual drive, and a wildly inconsistent personal philosophy. This book beautifully balances the brilliance with the turbulence. First published in 1976 but long unavailable, this new edition has been very extensively revised, updated, and reset. 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.