The Essential Grainger

In 1896, when sixteen, the Australian/American pianist/composer Percy Grainger came into contact with the works of Rudyard Kipling and in so doing found his own creative voice. Over the course of the next fifty years, he would create 46 settings of Kipling texts in which he captured the sense of underlying purpose and deeper meanings in a manner unique among musical settings of Kipling’s verse. In particular, his twelve settings from the Kipling “Jungle Book” Cycle convey a symbolical message of universalism, brotherhood, and the individuation of the human psyche. In this study, Grainger’s Kipling settings are taken as a microcosm of his compositional works as a whole, reflecting the roots of his art and mirroring his essential stylistic traits. Further than that, it is an attempt to spur a revaluation of both men’s art in the light of their professed humanitarian ideals.