Percy Grainger in Melbourne
Percy Grainger
Percy Grainger, composer and pianist, folksong collector, flagellant and lover of all things Nordic (‘Ugly swine such as the French and the Germans … should be ashamed of themselves for their loathsome beautylessness …’), was a child of 1880s Melbourne. He knew the streets of Brighton, Hawthorn and St Kilda; he learnt about rhythm by listening to water lap against his boat on Albert Park ‘Lagoon’. As a seven-year-old he met Charles Conder and Arthur Streeton at an exhibition, and his mother, the syphilitic Rose, often took him to sit in Streeton’s studio and watch him work. He would sit in his bedroom at 36 Oxley Road, Glenferrie (Hawthorn), and listen to the wind in the telegraph wires, making music from their song.
Percy’s father, the wayward, alcoholic John Grainger, and Rose, moved from Adelaide (where John was the SA Government architect) to Melbourne, when John won an 1879 competition to design a new city bridge over the Yarra (Princes Bridge). Rose was always aware of her husband’s philandering, and once told her mother, ‘If I’m happy with him for six months, that’s all I care about.’
The Graingers moved into an eight-room house in New Street, Brighton. Soon after, on 8 July 1882, Percy Grainger was born. As the difficult, drawn-out birth was taking place, John Grainger told the doctor that, although this was his first child, it wasn’t his first child. John, it seemed, had sown his seed in the pubs and drawing rooms of two states. Nonetheless, as the young Grainger grew up, he was unaware of his father’s healthy ‘loin life’ (as Grainger might call it). In 1954, he wrote, ‘My father was never cruel or bad-tempered with either mother or me.’ Mother, though, often threw John out of the house. He would later return, Grainger explained, ‘his clothes filthy from having lain drunk in a gutter, or the like. Then he would swear off the drink for a while and then a more pleasant, lively and happy man couldn’t be found.’
After Grainger’s birth, Rose seemed to reject John in favour of Percy. This was probably her attempt to keep her diseased husband away from him (she’d also hired nurses for this reason). Nonetheless, she continued living with John, for now. During the early 1880s, the Graingers continually moved around Melbourne, living, for short periods, at the Old England Hotel at Heidelberg and the Esplanade Hotel at St Kilda. In 1887, the family settled at ‘Killalah’ (Oxley Road, Glenferrie). Grainger grew closer to Rose, no doubt as a result of the bad-mouthing she gave her husband. John responded by trying to be a good father. He’d often take Grainger on a steamer to Portarlington where they’d search for periwinkles, and on a Sunday morning, go mushrooming together.
After a spell in England, John Grainger returned to Adelaide. He stayed with Rose’s family (the Aldridges), and later, Grainger wrote, ‘Aunty May told me that Uncle George never talked to father of father’s drinking and always had the whisky decanter in sight …’ John found a job building houses near Clare. When he tired of life with Rose’s family he moved to Western Australia, where he designed many significant public buildings.
Meanwhile, Rose was ‘creating’ the Percy we all remember today. She demanded he spend hours every day practising piano. Grainger didn’t mind, and later, was thankful his mother had exerted such discipline. He later said, ‘Mother had a Hitlerian streak – she was sure of what was right … Self-restraint didn’t enter into it … she was always planning helpful things for those she approved of.’ Indeed, Rose had made plans for her son. She’d decided he would be a great musician. And Grainger knew, ‘If mother’s will was opposed, I have never known anyone to successfully oppose her.’
Still, he was aware of her faults. ‘Mother was full of resources. She would smack my face, which I found very annoying, the more so as I neared 40.’
In the end, Rose would come to own Grainger – child, man and musician – a spell that was only broken when she jumped from a New York skyscraper in 1922 (as she realised she was losing control of her mind due to the affects of syphilis). Grainger was later devastated by claims of incest. People had got it all wrong, he explained. Yes, Rose was the love of his life, and always would be (he never married until after her death), but, he said, ‘I adored her for herself – for her beauty, her high mindedness, her grasp of art.’
Rose loved her son. If he worked hard, there was boating at Albert Park, trips to the Dandenongs, model boats. But if he strayed, there was the whip. This, to her, was love. Discipline, Victorian style. If he failed to do as he was told, or skipped piano practice, there was a lashing (up until the age of 16). Today, we see corporal punishment entirely differently, but to parents of this age, the instilling of ‘character’, self-discipline, respect, and the love of hard work, was all important. To neglect this would be the worst form of abuse. Indeed, Grainger didn’t seem to resent her for it. The whip would later become all important in his auto-erotic, and shared, love life with his wife, Ella. In 1932 he wrote a secret note: “Read This If Ella Grainger or Percy Grainger Are Found Dead Covered With Whip Marks”. Apparently he was concerned either he or his wife would die of a heart attack during one of their whipping frenzies. He explained, ‘My sex-cruelty is not unlovingness, but the height of love.’ It was, in a perverse way, a reminder of the love his mother would always have for him.
The child Percy continued finding nourishment in Melbourne. Rose took him to Chinatown where he marvelled at the shops and temples and listened to the strange musical instruments being played. He was a well-adjusted child. He acted out his favourite Icelandic Sagas in the backyard with neighbourhood kids. Rose continued to inspire him with all things Nordic, and he devoured the story of Grettir the Strong.
John returned to Melbourne in the late 1880s. By now he was suffering from a nervous condition brought on by his syphilis, as well as nicotine poisoning. Rose tried to raise money from some of her husband’s former work colleagues, and eventually packed him off to a private hospital. He improved, but after his release, regressed. He decided the best cure was an overseas trip. He packed his bags and left Melbourne in September 1890. He would never live with his family again.
Rose, meanwhile, kept on at her son. They had little money, and continually moved about (Rathmines Road, Hawthorn East, and then Caroline Street, South Yarra). She couldn’t see the point of sending her son to school (although for a time she placed him at Misses Turners’ Preparatory School for Boys in South Yarra). She knew she could do a better job (although maybe she was more worried about him being exposed to views other than her own). During this time she ensured he kept working at the piano. At age ten he was sent to study with Melbourne’s best teacher, Louis Pabst. In 1894, aged twelve, he was already giving public recitals (including three at the Exhibition Building, where one Age critic described him as ‘the flaxen-haired phenomenon who plays like a master on the piano’). He also played at the Hibernian Hall, in Swanston Street, and the Prahran Town Hall.
But by now, even Melbourne, the brash, bustling boom-town, wasn’t enough for Percy and Rose. The Wagnerian matriarch had arranged a new teacher for her son in Frankfurt. The pair sold up and boarded a boat, Rose’s eyes ablaze with reflected glory, the great concert halls of Europe, and a shared destiny that she had forged from the base metal of her unfortunate husband.
But Melbourne was the city that had produced, nourished, encouraged, educated, inspired and even warped, the young Grainger. He would return, many years later, to build a museum to his own life, at the University of Melbourne. If one wants to gain some sense of the greatness, the achievements, of this man, this is the place to go. It is certain there will never be another Percy Grainger. In some ways, he is the quintessential late-Victorian, but in other ways, he doesn’t begin to fit the mould. When, as a young child, Grainger was given a section of garden at ‘Killalah’ to plant flowers, he went collecting weed seeds from vacant blocks, came home, and sowed them instead. This, in the end, is Grainger – the unexpected, the unique.
Percy’s father, the wayward, alcoholic John Grainger, and Rose, moved from Adelaide (where John was the SA Government architect) to Melbourne, when John won an 1879 competition to design a new city bridge over the Yarra (Princes Bridge). Rose was always aware of her husband’s philandering, and once told her mother, ‘If I’m happy with him for six months, that’s all I care about.’
The Graingers moved into an eight-room house in New Street, Brighton. Soon after, on 8 July 1882, Percy Grainger was born. As the difficult, drawn-out birth was taking place, John Grainger told the doctor that, although this was his first child, it wasn’t his first child. John, it seemed, had sown his seed in the pubs and drawing rooms of two states. Nonetheless, as the young Grainger grew up, he was unaware of his father’s healthy ‘loin life’ (as Grainger might call it). In 1954, he wrote, ‘My father was never cruel or bad-tempered with either mother or me.’ Mother, though, often threw John out of the house. He would later return, Grainger explained, ‘his clothes filthy from having lain drunk in a gutter, or the like. Then he would swear off the drink for a while and then a more pleasant, lively and happy man couldn’t be found.’
After Grainger’s birth, Rose seemed to reject John in favour of Percy. This was probably her attempt to keep her diseased husband away from him (she’d also hired nurses for this reason). Nonetheless, she continued living with John, for now. During the early 1880s, the Graingers continually moved around Melbourne, living, for short periods, at the Old England Hotel at Heidelberg and the Esplanade Hotel at St Kilda. In 1887, the family settled at ‘Killalah’ (Oxley Road, Glenferrie). Grainger grew closer to Rose, no doubt as a result of the bad-mouthing she gave her husband. John responded by trying to be a good father. He’d often take Grainger on a steamer to Portarlington where they’d search for periwinkles, and on a Sunday morning, go mushrooming together.
After a spell in England, John Grainger returned to Adelaide. He stayed with Rose’s family (the Aldridges), and later, Grainger wrote, ‘Aunty May told me that Uncle George never talked to father of father’s drinking and always had the whisky decanter in sight …’ John found a job building houses near Clare. When he tired of life with Rose’s family he moved to Western Australia, where he designed many significant public buildings.
Meanwhile, Rose was ‘creating’ the Percy we all remember today. She demanded he spend hours every day practising piano. Grainger didn’t mind, and later, was thankful his mother had exerted such discipline. He later said, ‘Mother had a Hitlerian streak – she was sure of what was right … Self-restraint didn’t enter into it … she was always planning helpful things for those she approved of.’ Indeed, Rose had made plans for her son. She’d decided he would be a great musician. And Grainger knew, ‘If mother’s will was opposed, I have never known anyone to successfully oppose her.’
Still, he was aware of her faults. ‘Mother was full of resources. She would smack my face, which I found very annoying, the more so as I neared 40.’
In the end, Rose would come to own Grainger – child, man and musician – a spell that was only broken when she jumped from a New York skyscraper in 1922 (as she realised she was losing control of her mind due to the affects of syphilis). Grainger was later devastated by claims of incest. People had got it all wrong, he explained. Yes, Rose was the love of his life, and always would be (he never married until after her death), but, he said, ‘I adored her for herself – for her beauty, her high mindedness, her grasp of art.’
Rose loved her son. If he worked hard, there was boating at Albert Park, trips to the Dandenongs, model boats. But if he strayed, there was the whip. This, to her, was love. Discipline, Victorian style. If he failed to do as he was told, or skipped piano practice, there was a lashing (up until the age of 16). Today, we see corporal punishment entirely differently, but to parents of this age, the instilling of ‘character’, self-discipline, respect, and the love of hard work, was all important. To neglect this would be the worst form of abuse. Indeed, Grainger didn’t seem to resent her for it. The whip would later become all important in his auto-erotic, and shared, love life with his wife, Ella. In 1932 he wrote a secret note: “Read This If Ella Grainger or Percy Grainger Are Found Dead Covered With Whip Marks”. Apparently he was concerned either he or his wife would die of a heart attack during one of their whipping frenzies. He explained, ‘My sex-cruelty is not unlovingness, but the height of love.’ It was, in a perverse way, a reminder of the love his mother would always have for him.
The child Percy continued finding nourishment in Melbourne. Rose took him to Chinatown where he marvelled at the shops and temples and listened to the strange musical instruments being played. He was a well-adjusted child. He acted out his favourite Icelandic Sagas in the backyard with neighbourhood kids. Rose continued to inspire him with all things Nordic, and he devoured the story of Grettir the Strong.
John returned to Melbourne in the late 1880s. By now he was suffering from a nervous condition brought on by his syphilis, as well as nicotine poisoning. Rose tried to raise money from some of her husband’s former work colleagues, and eventually packed him off to a private hospital. He improved, but after his release, regressed. He decided the best cure was an overseas trip. He packed his bags and left Melbourne in September 1890. He would never live with his family again.
Rose, meanwhile, kept on at her son. They had little money, and continually moved about (Rathmines Road, Hawthorn East, and then Caroline Street, South Yarra). She couldn’t see the point of sending her son to school (although for a time she placed him at Misses Turners’ Preparatory School for Boys in South Yarra). She knew she could do a better job (although maybe she was more worried about him being exposed to views other than her own). During this time she ensured he kept working at the piano. At age ten he was sent to study with Melbourne’s best teacher, Louis Pabst. In 1894, aged twelve, he was already giving public recitals (including three at the Exhibition Building, where one Age critic described him as ‘the flaxen-haired phenomenon who plays like a master on the piano’). He also played at the Hibernian Hall, in Swanston Street, and the Prahran Town Hall.
But by now, even Melbourne, the brash, bustling boom-town, wasn’t enough for Percy and Rose. The Wagnerian matriarch had arranged a new teacher for her son in Frankfurt. The pair sold up and boarded a boat, Rose’s eyes ablaze with reflected glory, the great concert halls of Europe, and a shared destiny that she had forged from the base metal of her unfortunate husband.
But Melbourne was the city that had produced, nourished, encouraged, educated, inspired and even warped, the young Grainger. He would return, many years later, to build a museum to his own life, at the University of Melbourne. If one wants to gain some sense of the greatness, the achievements, of this man, this is the place to go. It is certain there will never be another Percy Grainger. In some ways, he is the quintessential late-Victorian, but in other ways, he doesn’t begin to fit the mould. When, as a young child, Grainger was given a section of garden at ‘Killalah’ to plant flowers, he went collecting weed seeds from vacant blocks, came home, and sowed them instead. This, in the end, is Grainger – the unexpected, the unique.
