AN INNOVATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22020, 1 August 1933, Page 8

AN INNOVATION

MUSEUM OF MUSIC TO MELBOURNE. (FBoft Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, July 20. An innovation, as far as Australia is concerned at least, will be a museum of music, to be made possible as a result of a gift of Mr Percy Grainger, the Australian composer, who has had such a successful career abroad. Mr Grainger is now in America, but he will, visit Australia next month, and will complete arrangements for the establishment of the museum. The museum will be erected in the grounds of the Melbourne University at Mr Grainger's expense, and the architecture and the nature of the exhibits will not be decided until Mr Grainger has had an opportunity of discussing such . matters with interested parties. Mr Grainger intends to pay for the upkeep of the building, and in his will he will make, provisions for concerts at which his own works and those of his contemporaries will be kept before the public for an indefinite pediod. Sargent's charcoal portrait of Mr Grainger, now in the Boston Museum- of Fine Art 3, and other paintings and drawings associated with music will be placed in the museum. The piano on which Mr Grainger practised in Melbourne from, six to .12 years will be included in ( the exhibits as well as various instruments on which he made his first experiments or used at important first appearances. Mr Grainger is making arrangements whereby'a wide variety of original musical manuscripts and relics will be pre : served in the museum. In addition, there will be records of English folk songs, Spanish gipsy music and Oriental, Madagascar, and South Seas music. Manuscripts of ,Grieg, the Norwegian composer, who for a number of years was a close friend of Mr Grainger, his watch and other Grieg relics will form a separate collection. As the museum grows in importance it is bound to attract a great deal of attention, and it is hoped that, eventually, the collection will be unique in the world.