Percy Grainger To A Nordic Princess (1928)

[Alan Howe]

Heard this on BBC Radio 3 this morning - had no idea what it was! If you don't know it, do get hold of it somehow. 12 and a half minutes of pure post-Straussian indulgence...

[TerraEpon]

I assume you mean the orchestral version. The recording I have is in Chados's Grainger edition, oddly enough on one of the choral discs despite half or more of it being non-choral).
Still, this piece is probably one of his most late-Romantic style works, as most of them are of course either 'dished-up' folksongs (or folk song style) or just in general a bit off the cusp.....not that I don't love it all myself, just hard to really put it on topic for this board.

[Alan Howe]

Well, as you suggest, this piece is as Straussian as Grainger gets, so it's an entirely appropriate topic for debate here.

[eschiss1]

The description in the review of the Chandos version- (why oddly enough? it's was his wedding present piece, anyway, no? that allows for a _very_ large chorus indeed for the half that is choral...) - is intriguing and suggests that it optionally could perhaps be rather longer still (though two sources are quoted in the two reviews which disagree a bit about the flexibility given the performers on that point.) Anyhow, will try to get a listen...

[semloh]

Yes, this pops up on Australia's classical radio from time to time, and it's always a joy, and I have the Marco Polo version, which seems fine. I find Grainger's music anything from seriously irritating to truly joyful, and this is definitely the latter. And what a wonderful wedding gift... up there with Wagner's birthday present to Cosima of the Siegfried Idyll .

[eschiss1]

and in a manner of speaking, Mozart's unfinished (and quite passionate) Mass in C minor. (Early for us though somehow broadly-speaking proto-Romantic, especially in the - also late-Baroque (Janus-faced?) - Qui Tollis movement...)
(Haven't heard a more obvious example, to wit Saint-Saëns' ...)
(Seems there's at least one thread there if it hasn't been discussed already- I mean that of wedding presents, or for other (threads) other forms of dedications - e.g. effective "in memoria". Etc.)