Percy Grainger: the ninth best composer ever

The maverick and eccentric Percy Grainger rated himself more highly than Mozart and TchaikovskyFew melodies have become quite as insinuatingly popular as Percy Grainger's arrangement of the traditional air In an English Country Garden. The piece has been performed by everyone from Leopold Stokowski to the Muppets, though Grainger quickly grew to loathe the tune: "A typical English country garden is more likely to be a vegetable plot than used to grow flowers," he complained, "so you can think ...

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