Browse Items (337 total)

There are 80 musical glasses in the Grainger Museum Collection, which were created by Ella and Percy Grainger in the 1930s for use in performances of Tribute to Foster and Norse Dirge. Ella and Percy sourced the glasses from many different…

Grainger used this marimba for performances of his Tribute to Foster, exploiting the design innovation that enabled single notes and resonators to be removed from the instrument for playing individually. Grainger wrote instructions, such as ‘violin…

Ella Grainger became an expert player of her husband’s compositions using the bells and steel marimba, under Percy’s tutelage, despite having no formal musical training. She played the bells on tours across America in the period 1929-33, and in…

Audience interest in the compositions of Australia’s celebrated composer-pianist Percy Grainger was immense, and his tours in Australia in 1934 and 1935 are typical. His 1934 tour included performances of In a Nutshell Suite, To a Nordic Princess,…

The Lynch Family were renowned for using many unusual instruments, including handbells, organ chimes, glasses, and a metallophone (‘the Marimba Resonators’). This latter instrument, described as ‘the only instrument of its kind in the world’, is an…

Set of staff bells (detail), 1916; made by J.C. Deagan Inc. (Chicago) and Percy Aldridge Grainger

Melba claimed to have encouraged Puccini to see the play on which his opera Madama Butterfly is based. She studied the title role with him, as well as that of Tosca, however she never performed either role.

This opera score was inscribed prior to Melba’s adoption of her famous stage name in December 1887. A derivation honouring her native city of Melbourne, the name was selected to sound Italian and be easily remembered.

Despite her success as Elsa…