Percy Grainger at the Bechstein Hall.

From Wikipedia

On 15 November 1905, the Australian born Percy Grainger (1882-1961) gave a remarkable recital at the Bechstein Hall, Wigmore Street London. At the time, Grainger was establishing himself as a pianist and composer in London, where he had been based since 1901.

It was a wide-ranging concert that must have lasted for more than two hours. It opened with a major transcription of J.S. Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in D major by the Italian Ferruccio Busoni. The Times (16 November 1905, p.10) reports that he played “two of the less hackneyed sonatas” by Domenico Scarlatti. This was followed by Beethoven’s Rondo ‘Die Wut über den verlorenen Groschen, ausgetobt in einer Caprice’ better known to English concert goers as the Rage over a Lost Penny presented with “admirable delicacy and humour.”  Then came Johannes Brahms Variations on a Theme by Handel “played with prodigious effect and brilliancy, as well as with complete musicianship.”

At the beginning of the century, Percy Grainger was deeply involved in collecting English folk songs in North Lincolnshire. He was influenced by the Folk Song Society, which aimed to preserve traditional music before it disappeared due to urbanisation. However, he was also an enthusiast of Edvard Grieg. He included two unnamed folk tunes arranged by the Norwegian composer. Turning to Irish music, he played his own transcriptions of two Irish Dances which had been collected and realised by Charles Villiers Stanford – the first being the “whimsical” Leprechaun’s Dance, and the second, a “rollocking Cork reel” subtitled Take her our and air her. Encores were demanded of these pieces.

A major (possible) first British performance was Claude Debussy’s Pagodes. This is the first piece in Estampes (1903), evoking Indonesian gamelan music, which the French composer encountered at the 1889 Paris Exposition. The Times considered that it was “a weird and picturesque piece…couched in what we must suppose to be a Chinese style.”  Another novelty was Cyril Scott’s dreamlike, hypnotic, Lotus Land which paper deemed to be “a fanciful and original piece of formidable difficulty” and the London Evening Standard (16 November 1905, p.9) felt that it was “curiously weird.” The recital concluded with the Balakirev favourite, the fiery and virtuosic Islamey.

Considering the concert as a whole, the Daily Telegraph (16 November 1905, p.11) noted that Granger’s “…adherents almost completely filled the room.” Furthermore, it considered that “the artist…shows a steady advance in [his] ability to interpret the works of the great composers in a manner that yields satisfaction to connoisseurs.” On the downside the critic felt that Grainger was “a little too much inclined…to establish the quality of his muscle.” This made his interpretation of the Bach/Busoni and the Brahms “a thought too powerful.”

This notion was echoed by H.V. in the Musical Standard (25 November 1905, p343). He writes that "Mr Percy Grainger is a pianist with a large technique and a boundless ability, seemingly for making a noise…” His execution “admitted only the two extremes of tone – viz., great power and considerable delicacy.” Thus the “nuances between these two were for the most part absent.”