Percy Grainger - In a Nutshell Suite (1916)

[@Cmaj7]

00:01 Movement I - Arrival Platform Humlet 02:39 Movement II - Gay but Wistful 06:01 Movement III - Pastoral 16:22 Movement IV - The Gum-Suckers March

[@sneddypie]

@Cmaj7 "gay but wistful"

[@mckernan603]

The Gum-Suckers March references: 17:00 Up-Country Song, his Aussie anthem 17:14 patriotic fireworks in the piano 17:37 The Widow's Party 17:40 "Johnny, Johnny..." 19:29 Up-Country Song

[@epthopper]

The Pastoral is just amazing. Grainger really knew how to build tension to a climax, and holy crap, the amount of different things going on at some places is insane. I think Grainger is possibly one of the most underrated composers of the 20th century. His style is so unique and yet his music has so much variety. Just listen to his arrangement of "Irish Tune from County Derry" (Danny Boy) and then listen to this. Polar opposites in terms of harmony and complexity, but both incredibly beautiful.

[@MrMayAllDay]

Could not agree any more!

[@danielmclean6748]

Grainger is my personal GOAT. Such diversity in his pieces, yet you know you're listening to Grainger every time.

[@soumilbiswas5231]

I LOVE GRAINGER!! HOW CAN HE BE SO UNDERRATED!!??

[@HinseMutter]

10 listens in and Pastoral is still one of the strangest and most powerful things I have heard in 2017.

[@looney1023]

Agreed! I also discovered this suite in 2017 and I must've listened to Pastoral 50 times since. It's indescribably powerful and extremely original.

[@anton8019]

I just discovered it today and I'm mad I haven't heard it until now.

[@coloraturaElise]

Reminds me a lot of his "The Warriors", on a smaller scale.

[@mason3845]

The Pastoral is so beautiful and incredibly powerful, and I was also surprised to hear Colonial Song in the march. Grainger's music is some of the most impressive in the world of music, and one of my favorites.

[@grahamsmith2862]

What a very sensible way to score, with all the parts written at actual pitch, making no concessions for "transposing instruments". A great man, who assisted and accommodated Henry Cowell on his release from prison, when Cowell was shunned by Ives, Schoenberg, Ruggles, and the others.

[@isaiahnordine3058]

Grainger seems to actually like the viola

[@AnthonyOTooleMusic]

He would have called it the ‘middle fiddle’ haha

[@bthomson]

Personal story! Percy knew the mother of a friend of mine very well! Her name was "Viola!"

[@mckernan603]

@@bthomson Any private stories you can share?

[@davidrehak3539]

Percy Grainger:Dióhéjban Szvit 1. Érkezés platform darázs 00:00 2. Meleg, de szomorú 02:39 3. Pasztorál 06:01 4. Az ínycsikók induló 16:22 BBC Filharmonikus Zenekara Vezényel:Richard Hickox

[@JDawg7077]

Köszönöm

[@GuilhermeCarvalhoComposer]

I'm binge-listening to all your videos, your selection is superb and I love the care you put into presenting all these scores. I stopped to comment here because "I'm quite certain there is no nabimba" is going into my repertoire of favorite phrases to say completely out of context.

[@MrGer2295]

Remembering PERCY GRAINGER (1882 - 1961) on his birthday !

[@stronzo5785]

Percussion major, here...yes, there was an instrument made by Deagan back in the middle of the last century called a Nabimba...it was basically a bass marimba with very large resonators in the bottom octave of the instrument. Deagan made a 5 octave nabimba at one time. Nowadays, those parts are played on a bass marimba, but sometimes the instrument is leased from an organization like the MIM in Scottsdale.

[@drakeeshleman4519]

MIM is such a wonderful place, I didn't know they leased out instruments to orchestras! How interesting.

[@daniellennon9993]

Wow! That third movement is amazing!

[@jacobbullock2070]

Daniel Lennon I thought the same thing!

[@celadonk]

This whole piece is phenomenal, but these are my favorite moments: 11:40 I love the chords here. So rich and yet so transparent. The horn solo, followed by English horn, has a very haunting character. 14:07 I love this part for how much it differs from the rest of the movement. It’s a brief moment of pure magic and love of life in a movement that’s mostly fairly brooding

[@jacobbass6437]

Grainger is the only composer who could take tonal music so far that it became utterly atonal. It’s amazing.

[@mrtchaikovsky]

I think that honour goes to good ol' Arnie S. ...

[@windowtrimmer8211]

Words can’t describe how much I like this work. Oh, and “ The Warriors” too.

[@jeffkokes1360]

HORNS AT 1:52 AAAHHH ITS SO GOOD

[@thedavunit4245]

Yeah! the score! Thanks a bunch!

[@jamesbrownjr.5074]

I could be wrong, but the third movement puts me in mind of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In a Nutshell is a beautiful composition.

[@jacobbass6437]

Gosh. This has got to be among the hardest pieces to conduct. The slightly changing tempos, the crazy entrances, coordinating the piano, harp, and celesta. Combined with making the music feel like it’s just gunna burst from the energy. Honestly the so called for orchestra is nothing. This piece needs quadruple or even quintuple winds, 6-8 horns, and a massive string section. But you gotta do it what what you got.

[@AmericanIdiot2002]

In case anyone else is curious, there are probably other references to his other works in the first movement, but the second movement takes from "widows party" third movement takes from "the power of rome and the christian heart" and Gumsuckers takes from "colonial song" and "widows party"

[@mason3845]

I've listened to The Power of Rome and the Christian Heart many times and the atmosphere between that and this 3rd movement are similar but what material derives from that piece? I'm having troubles finding it.

[@AmericanIdiot2002]

Mainly just the vibes with ostinato pulses throughout most of the movement, no direct quotations per se but I mainly meant what you found about the general atmosphere

[@ric55]

I've also tried to pick up clues about the Grainger cross-references. Wonder if it is some form of internal codification concerning his personal life? There's a Ph.D. in there somewhere, for someone young enough.....but what a fascinating contrapuntal composer!

[@joshuahaines9090]

While similarities and direct quotations abound in this piece (which is common in most of Grainger's compositions), there are a few things that need clearing up here; The direct quotations are as follows: 0.48 - 0.56: Central theme of 'The Warriors - Music to an Imaginary Ballet' (one of Grainger's most challenging compositions, on par with his Hill Songs I & II). 17.00 - 17.18/19.29 - 19.45: 'Australian Up-Country Song'. This is the title of theme quoted as Grainger later expanded on this melody to create the 'Colonial Song'. 17.37 - 18.24: Various quotations which were later moulded into 'The Widow's Party' (Kipling setting). There are no direct quotations from 'The Power of Rome and the Christian Heart' as this piece was completed almost thirty years after the 'In a Nutshell' suite was, nor are there any quotations in the 'Gay but Wistful' movement (this movement is to imitate a music hall style). There may be similarities in orchestration and texture (areas in which Grainger is a master) which can be misconstrued as quotations, but there is no correlation between the two pieces in this respect. However these sounds (along with intense chromaticism) are as much a characteristic of Grainger's music as a sweeping melody is to Tchaikovsky's. With regards to an attempt to personify the musical quotations Grainger uses, the short answer is - don't. Grainger's constant self-contradiction and multi-layered mentality make the task virtually impossible, as Grainger himself admitted. The simple answer is, he used these themes because they were worth using.

[@richardmeads7775]

You misunderstood. I wasn't even referring to whole themes as such. More a case of short melodic and contrapuntal cells of very few notes, and not necessarily consecutive. Max Reger developed whole compositions in this way, especially for the organ. Articled in 'The Musical Times' in 1967 and 68 if I recall correctly.

[@spiderlime]

i love the quotation from the warriors... i imagine grainger waiting for a train which arrives and zulu warriors get down from it...

[@mrewan6221]

Is there any chance of moving the advertisements into the gaps between movements? It seems a bit perverse to have sudden interruptions, when there are obvious places for them. (Assuming you _must_ have advertisements?)

[@metzwiler]

What a cool piece of music

[@DaveDexterMusic]

I feel that, every time this is played, John Powell grows stronger.

[@michigandersea3485]

Grainger must have been familiar with the gamelan

[@BetonBrutContemporary]

Mouvement 1: Discount Ravel Mouvement 2: This is Toy Story Mouvement 3: Holy SHET Mouvement 4: Toy Story again

[@TheGymSavant]

I hate that you’re right...

[@JCPianissimo]

I'd would like to listen to the piano strings at the end of pastoral.

[@LyleFrancisDelp]

Go to the US Marine Band KZbin channel and listen to their band version of this suite.

[@megan8765]

ahh i played gumsuckers march last year

[@geevanh4200]

♥♥

[@vasilegribincea3243]

I feel he anticipated to some extent Zappa's classical music.

[@Thekarasideofyoutube]

Solo "feelingly"

[@geevanh4200]

♥♥

[@GéVeeHaa]

Robert Schumann Quote : Composing something real unique is writing down a melody/set of notes that no one else ever had done before.... ♫♪

[@alinkbetweengames4328]

Seeing quirky annotations saying stuff like "louden" instead of traditional musical terms: 😄 People who know why those are there: 💀

[@scj6693]

2:37 me

[@UndecimeBeatitudo]

Gay bur wistful?

[@scj6693]

CrudeRow you betcha

[@nickthetwin9941]

Yes me 2

[@m34nb34n]

well would yah lookit that! I like Percy Grainger! lol....what has happened to me!>?

[@coloraturaElise]

Could that second mvt be any slower? Dang!

[@geevanh4200]

♥♥

[@mydogsareneat]

Whyd you post a picture of the chef guy who was also in shameless

[@arinetic5538]

VIOLA SOLO???

[@jacobbass6437]

Truly gorgeous

[@geevanh4200]

♥

[@CatkhosruShapurrjiFurabji]

Based

[@DonutMaster56]

Oh wow

[@ashvalentine517]

Inspector gadget?

[@geevanh4200]

♥

[@_rstcm]

InTeReStInG way of scoring the orchestra.

[@andreafilidei3071]

Pastoral... 😢

[@geevanh4200]

♥♥

[@betaomega04]

This is one of the few exceptions where the wind band arrangement sounds better than the orchestral version.

[@Belfreyite]

Ha Ha! Graingers wife's second name was Viola. What a cracking composer and deviant to his core. He would not have been out of place in todays crowd of aberrant, degenerate artists who delight in sawing cows in half and praising the joys of a "Reach round"

[@fan_of_euler]

Gay but wistful lmao

[@lossaltamontesdemos6061]

:D

[@giannotti7777]

A little poor in terms of the material and its treatment. But god damn, this piece is so well orchestrated!

[@ferguscullen8451]

"Poor" how?

[@giannotti7777]

@@ferguscullen8451 In terms of what is thematic concerning the material... mov. 1 is a children's song, mov. 2 some simple rag time that Grainger picked up in Dodge City's Saloon (of course, I made that one up), mov. 3 the title is self explanatory, mov. 4 even more wild fest folklore. That being said, I don't really consider this to be something negative. And re-hearing the piece, I am still stunned actually by how the material is scored.

[@itzyoboi_2073]

Honestly mid

[@WitchKing-Of-Angmar]

Coming from someone saying Mid, you have zero respect in real judgement.