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Grainger first saw Indonesian instruments, including a Balinese gong, at the home of a wealthy collector in England. In 1912, while on tour in Europe, he was captivated by the Indonesian percussion instruments he saw in the National Museum of…

In a Nutshell Suite was first performed at the Norfolk Festival of Music, Connecticut, USA, on 9 June 1916. This suite contains some of Grainger’s best scoring for ‘tuneful percussion’. Grainger was unusually prescriptive about the type of mallets…

Ten players were required to perform the percussion parts for ‘Norse Dirge’, across the variety of instruments, including some of the musical glasses (seen in the display case). Unlike in Tribute to Foster, where the choir played the musical glasses…

Audiences were fascinated and amused and sometimes bemused by the novelty and adventurous nature of Grainger’s orchestration in performances of his radical compositions. The Brisbane Courier-Mail observed, after a concert in October 1934, how…

This is a Deagan master ‘lite wate’ xylophone, adapted from earlier models and produced during World War II. It is made from Honduras rosewood, timber, and cardboard. Designed around portability, this small 3 octave xylophone is a one-piece unit…

Deagan gave the name ‘Marimbaphone’ to a series of models equipped with rotating or tilting frames, and bars with concave ends. They came in various sizes and were made with both rosewood and steel bars. The purpose of this feature was to play the…

This tuning fork was manufactured by Deagan. It is inscribed on the back ‘ J.C. Deagan. Official pitch of A.F. of M. 1917 Adopted by US Gov't. 1920’. J. C. Deagan, was a musician and expert in the science of acoustics. He wrote many papers on the…

Grainger enjoyed ‘liberty of the factory’ of J.C. Deagan, as he worked closely with the instrument maker to develop instruments specific to the new orchestral timbres he was seeking to create. In this letter, Deagan writes to Grainger regarding the…