Lincolnshire Posy

Composer Percy Grainger was born in Australia in 1882. He was educated in Germany and began his career as a pianist, composer, inventor, and pioneering ethnomusicologist in Great Britain before settling in the United States in 1914 to live out the rest of his life. Though he considered his career a failure, his impact on classical music in the 20th century was significant. Grainger had an outsized personality along with some reprehensible beliefs. Despite this, his musical works are particularly notable, especially repertoire written for wind band which are considered some of the finest of their kind.

Between 1905-1906, Grainger traveled in Lincolnshire, a county in east central England. There, he collected folk songs sung by local singers. He first did this by notating the tunes on paper, later using an Edison Recording Machine to capture their voices directly onto wax cylinders. These recordings became a deep well for some of his most interesting musical ideas. In fact, over 30 years later, in 1937, Grainger was asked to compose a work for the American Bandmaster’s Convention and the result was a six-movement work known as Lincolnshire Posy, based on his collected folksongs from Lincolnshire.

While maintaining much of the original stylization of the original singers, Lincolnshire Posy is an incredibly inventive piece of music. This 16-minute piece is lush, playful, sad, and even disturbing at times. Its constantly shifting time signatures keep the listener and the player on their toes while chords swiftly transition from harmonious to discordant. You might be inclined to think this makes the piece a difficult listen. On the contrary, Lincolnshire Posy is truly sublime. Indeed, it is considered by many to be the “crown jewel” of wind-band repertoire.

I had the privilege to play French horn on a performance of Grainger’s masterpiece while studying music in college. As much as I’d love to say the melodic lines given to the Horn section are the best of the piece (the first movement!), the same could be said of virtually every section of the band. The third movement, “Rufford Park Poachers," showcases virtually every woodwind section with impossibly difficult counterpoint. The trumpet parts throughout are rich with heroic melodies. The lush chords provided to all the brass players in the fifth movement, “Lord Melbourne” cause every player to believe their part is paramount.

Last year, I attended the Fort Collins Wind Symphony concert in Griffin Concert Hall at CSU. Liberty Common School’s very own band instructor, Mr. David Lunn, plays saxophone in this professional ensemble. Unbeknownst to me, their concert program included a performance of Lincolnshire Posy. Though I performed this piece over 30 years prior, I could remember virtually every melody. In fact, the performance moved me to tears—it is truly powerful, and the Wind Symphony’s performance was excellent. I was reminded of how music can move us, inspire us, and unite us.

Grainger referred to this 6-movement work as his “bunch of wildflowers” (hence the name Lincolnshire Posy), and dedicated it to “the old folksingers who sang so sweetly” to him. I encourage readers to set aside 16 minutes to listen for themselves.

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