NOTED PIANIST

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23109, 6 August 1938, Page 17

NOTED PIANIST

ME. PEECY GKAINGER BRIEF AUCKLAND VISIT POLYNESIAN CHORAL MUSIC After being in England and the United States for over two and a-half years, the celebrated Australian pianist and composer, Mr. Percy Grainger, passed through Auckland by the Mariposa yesterday on his way to Melbourne. Before leaving there early next year to fulfil engagements abroad, Mr. Grainger will devote several months to finishing a number of compositions on which he is now engaged. During his latest sojourn abroad, Mr. Grainger Ims given between 100 and 200 concerts in the United States and England and has also broadcast I'lß times for the British Broadcasting Corporation. One of his greatest experiences during that time was to hear several of his own compositions performed by a Broadcasting Corporation orchestra. Next January he is to appear in further concerts in the United States and will go to England for other performances in April. High praise for Polynesian choral inusie was expressed by Air. Grainger yesterday. The importance of this type of music was first brought to his attention in 1909, when he heard recordings of songs by Rarotongans who attended the Christchurch Inhibition in- 1908, but up to the present time he had not had tbe opportunity to study the music as thoroughly as he desired. This he proposed to do in the next few years.

"I think that within a few years' time a great deal of Polynesian choral music will be sung throughout the world," he said. "In my opinion the choral music as sung by the Polynesians in Rarotonga, Samoa, Tahiti and other islands constitutes the greatest contribution to this type of music that lias occurred in my lifetime. It is more important than anything that has been produced in Europe ''