Percy Grainger: Folk music - Claire Booth (soprano), Christopher Glynn (piano) album review

Percy Grainger Folk Music
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Artist: Claire Booth; Christopher Glynn; Percy Grainger
Genre: Children's Music
Label: Avie

Marmite music is how Booth and Glynn describe the work of Australian composer Percy Grainger — people tend to love it or hate it. Grainger was eccentric in any number of ways, musical and non-musical.

Booth sings his folksong arrangements, which include material he collected himself, with an appealing girlish freshness. The performances — which include piano solo and duet arrangements — do smooth out some of the corners that others like to accentuate in Grainger’s writing.

The effect is to tone down idiosyncrasies which hard-core fans cherish. But it is interesting to hear the music so plausibly presented as more mainstream than quirky.

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Michael Dervan

Michael Dervan

Michael Dervan is a music critic and Irish Times contributor