Country Gardens

Country Gardens is Australian composer Percy Grainger’s best known piece, but its melody was not in fact written by Grainger himself. It was an old folk tune used by English Morris dancers, which the collector Cecil Sharp transcribed in 1906 from a concertina player. Sharp showed the tune to Grainger, who immediately developed something of an obsession with it, “dishing-up” different versions for piano, orchestra, piano with orchestra, and wind band. In all Grainger’s treatments of Country Gardens the tune’s blithe insouciance shines through. Lilting and instantly memorable, the melody has attracted numerous other artists, becoming (as “English Country Garden”) a hit for the American singer Jimmie Rodgers in 1962. Grainger himself wearied of Country Gardens’ popularity, although he earned substantial royalties from it over a 40-year period. "The typical English country garden is not often used to grow flowers,” he reportedly told audiences. “So you can think of turnips as I play it.”