Collected Choral Works: Volume 1 for mixed chorus

This collection gathers some of Percy Grainger’s most characteristic choral works – from the haunting beauty of Mo nighean dubh and the lyrical simplicity of Irish Tune from County Derry to the exuberant storytelling of The Lost Lady Found. Drawing on folksong, poetry and original invention, these pieces reveal Grainger’s unmistakable blend of warmth, vitality and daring harmonic imagination.

"The hope as far as these new collections are concerned is to offer choirs the chance to sing from clearly set out scores that are much easier to read and more economical to buy than the originals. I took the decision to retain Grainger’s unacademic, yet fastidious and eccentric instructions to performers - without ‘louden lots’, ‘clingingly’, ‘very tellingly’, ‘very feelingly’, etc… - Grainger would not be Grainger. One or two somewhat idiosyncratic time-signatures have been simplified – for example a bar of 2 and a half over 4 in ‘The Widow’s Party’ is now a bar of 5/8 – the musical effect is the same, just I hope easier to read. I have removed some of the more disturbing words that appear in a few of the texts, which might have been commonplace at the turn of the 1900s and even appear in recordings made at the beginning of this century, but which are now thankfully no longer acceptable. They reflect a different time and different attitudes, and I hope sensitive editing makes these offending passages less of a problem for present day singers and audiences." David Wordsworth, editor of Collected Choral Works: Volume 1 for mixed chorus.