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Embracing Grainger

Robin Holloway

Wednesday, 12th December 2007

The 20th century's most maverick musician

What can it be, this squat semicircular structure nestled inconspicuous yet peculiar amid the faculties and offices along the leafy university stretch of Royal Parade, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia? Looks like a bus station without passengers, a public lavatory without users; perhaps still more (being windowless save for a high band of opaque glass bricks) a wartime bunker or bomb shelter. There’s a front door, tightly sealed; the bell yields no answer; the inscription gives nothing away — except to those who already know what they seek. For this singular building houses the inheritance of the most plural composer who ever lived: Percy Grainger, Melbourne’s greatest son and the 20th century’s most maverick musician.

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