Episode 5

The main work in today's programme is Grainger's Jungle Book cycle, which he worked on, on and off, for nearly 50 years. It's the culmination of his boyhood love of Rudyard Kipling, instilled in him in his teens by his father, who wanted to "tickle up the British lion in him" during his years at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt. Shortly before Grainger completed his Kipling cycle, he had performed the Grieg Piano Concerto at the Hollywood Bowl under the baton of Leopold Stokowksi. The two men enjoyed working together, and a couple of years later, Stokowksi, a master-arranger himself, wrote to Grainger asking if he would make fresh arrangements for a new recording of his 'greatest hits' - Molly on the Shore, Irish Tune from County Derry, Early One Morning, Handel in the Strand, Mock Morris and Country Gardens. Grainger was evidently very pleased with the resultant recordings, but remained deeply ambivalent about his own achievements as a composer: "I am not very fond of my own music. If there is anything I hate it is listening to my own silly music and having to sit there like a fool while I see how much others also dislike it.".