Grainger Collection

Percy Aldridge Grainger (1882–1961) was a prolific composer and a virtuoso pianist with an international reputation. Australian-born, he is remembered as his country's greatest composer; in England he is considered an important figure in the preservation and arrangement of English folk song, and in the United States, where he lived most of his life, he is highly regarded as a music educator, composer and arranger of band music. His genius also encompassed an extraordinary facility for languages, a strong talent for design and an innovative approach to museology.

The idea for an autobiographical museum began to evolve in Grainger's mind in the early 1920s, shortly after the death of his mother Rose. In a letter to his friend Balfour Gardiner, dated 3 May 1922, Grainger mentions a Grainger Museum for the first time:

‘All very intimate letters or notes should be deposited in an Australian Grainger Museum, preferably in birth-town Melbourne’.

Established at the University of Melbourne during the 1930s, the Grainger Collection is now an internationally recognised archive and artefact collection numbering in excess of 100,000 items, which include Grainger’s original manuscripts and his collection of works by other composers such as Cyril Scott, Balfour Gardiner, Roger Quilter, Frederick Delius and Edvard Greig. 

Grainger’s desire to contextualise his creative achievements in the fields of music composition, ethnomusicology, ‘free music’ experimentation and two- and three-dimensional design is evidenced by his eclectic collection of correspondence, fine art (including works by prominent Australian artists such as Tom Roberts, Rupert Bunny and Norman Lindsay), decorative art, Edwardian furniture, musical instruments, costumes, design work and free music experiments.

Other notable Australian composers represented in the Grainger Collection holdings include Ian Bonighton, May Brahe, Mona McBurney, Henry Tate, Florence D. Ewart and George W. Marshall Hall.

The Grainger Museum building is currently closed to the public, for major building conservation and maintenance works. Material from the collection however is available for research by prior arrangement. Please email grainger@unimelb.edu.au or visit the website http://www.lib.unimelb.edu.au/collections/grainger/

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