AFTER FIFTEEN YEARS

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18095, 10 June 1924, Page 10

AFTER FIFTEEN YEARS

PERCY GRAINGER REVISITS N.Z. (SPECIAL TO " THE PRESS.") WELLINGTON, June 9. Mr Percy Grainger has arrived here from San Francisco on a brief visit to collect material, both in New Zealand and Australia, for a biography of his mother. It is fifteen years since he was here, he says. He had nine relatives dependent upon him, and he cliose th<3 United States as the most remunerative field for his talents. Occasionally -he travels abroad, and last winter he gave 55 concerts in Holland and Scandinavia. , ■ Anglo-Saxon music, he says, is taking a very high place in the world to day, and German publishers are very keen to get it. The . English composer stands higher to-day than thd composer of any other nationality. That is to say the British nation has the largest number of composers who fire being recognised for their music. America, Mr Grainger said, possess ed some' very good musical composers, but she was still a few years behind England in that respect, though she was progressing very well.- Musical people on the Continent had been quick to recognise the great improvement in Anglo-Saxon music. In Germany they were attracted instinctively by the melodic tendency in the modern musi eal form of expression. The war fever of hatred was ■ at an end, and the people had .resumed their normal outlook. Their attitude now was one of intense jealousy of tho British rather than of hatred.