Percy Grainger - Lincolnshire Posy - UTexas Wind Ensemble

(all rights belong to the The University of Texas Bands; there is no video of this performance on their channel)
"Lincolnshire Posy" (1937)
Percy Aldridge Grainger

Australian composer Percy Grainger (1882–1961), later settled in Britain and became an established pianist. In this time, Grainger began to take an interest in the rich folk song tradition of his adopted homeland. From 1905 to 1906, he set out to find people familiar with this music – travelling from village to village, at first with pencil and notebook, and later recording with a phonograph. The collection that emerged from these encounters became a treasure chest of musical ideas and provided the foundation for one of his most popular works: Lincolnshire Posy.

0:00 I. "Lisbon (Sailor's Song)"
1:23 II. "Horkstow Grange (The Miser and his Man: A Local Tragedy)"
4:51 III. "Rufford Park Poachers (Poaching Song)"
9:22 IV. "The Brisk Young Sailor (returned to wed his True love)"
10:57 V. "Lord Melbourne (War Song)"
14:25 VI. "The Lost Lady Found (Dance Song)"
16:50 Applause

The University of Texas Wind Ensemble
Jerry Junkin, conductor

Live from the Bates Recital Hall in Austin, Texas on October 13, 2024.

In 1914, Grainger had moved to the United States and became an American citizen in 1918. In 1937, as a commission for the upcoming American Bandmasters Association convention, he turned to six of these folk songs. In doing so, he wanted to preserve the singers’ original diction and expressive nuances: “Each number is intended to be a kind of musical portrait of the singer who sang its underlying melody – a musical portrait of the singer’s personality no less than of his habits of song – his regular or irregular wonts of rhythm, his preference for gaunt or ornately arabesqued delivery, his contrasts of legato and staccato, his tendency towards breadth or delicacy of tone.”
— adapted from Martin Demmler (Berlin Philharmonic)