Browse Items (337 total)

Electronic Music Studios, Ltd, London, EMS Vocoder, late 1970s

Metal, plastic, electronic components

On loan from MESS Ltd

EMS first released a large Vocoder in 1976, and this simplified, lower-cost, compact version was released the…

Toned silver gelatin print.

Photo: 24.1 x 19.0 cm
Photo and frame: 30.3 x 24.3 cm

Grainger spent a lot of his life away from home touring as a concert pianist. While his mother was alive he developed a pattern of having photographs of himself…

silver gelatin print.

Photo: 21.1 x 16 cm
Photo and card: 25.2 x 20.2 cm


Although taken in a formal studio setting, this photograph was certainly not meant for promotional purposes. Grainger had his portrait taken by Mary Dale Clark on a…

Platinum prints.

Photo: 14.0 x 9.5 cm
Photo and board: 28.0 x 20.7 cm
Envelope: 35.6 x 22.8 cm
These portraits were taken in the same sitting at Elliot and Fry studio in London, and demonstrate how a change in lighting and camera angle can…

Silver gelatin print.

Photo: 20.2 x 15.6 cm
Photo and board: 37.5 x 29.8 cm

This portrait depicts Percy Grainger with his fingers interlaced in front of him. The photograph is mounted on board.

Sheet-fed photo gravure print
(Bruchmann Mezzotint gravures, printer)

28.5 x 22 cm

This portrait depicts Rose Grainger sitting in a plush armchair. She is wearing a long off shoulder dress with flowing skirts and organza. As described by the…

Electronic Music Studios, Ltd, London, VCS1 (Don Banks Music Box), c.1968–69, in the Optronics Unit built by Graham Thirkell, c. early 1970s.
Collection MESS Ltd

Metal, plastic, electronic components, wood

On loan from MESS Ltd

The story…

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…

The box of Free Music components that this object is part of contains scraps of wood, metal, paper and rubber.
- Wood and felt frame (musical instrument?)
- Small piece of cardboard with electronic components attached - transformer, potentiometer,…