George Gershwin/Percy Grainger - Love Walked In (audio + sheet music)

One of Grainger's more disturbing idiosyncrasies was an inveterate racism, which, though fashionable at the time (and shared, for instance, by T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound), seems barbaric today. From childhood he identified with the heroes of Nordic sagas -- whose language he learned -- and from the end of his student days at Frankfurt he attempted to purge his speech and writing of words having Greek, Latin, or Romance language roots and to make what he called "Blue-eyed English," of which he compiled a voluminous dictionary. His biographer John Bird remarked, "His life was to be ruled by Odin rather than Zeus or Jupiter." Anti-Semitism was also part of the mix. In 1953, scheduled for prostate surgery in New York, he canceled abruptly and went to Denmark for it. Bird noted, "He was utterly terrified at the thought that he might wake up in the Mayo Clinic after the operation to find a Jewish doctor standing over him." Yet he admired the music of Ernest Bloch, Rubin Goldmark (whose Negro Rhapsody he performed in Hollywood Bowl in 1928), and Gershwin. The latter began to interest Grainger intensely in the early '40s -- during which he learned and performed the Rhapsody in Blue and the Piano Concerto -- which meant he must possess the music by lavishing his own art upon it and making concert transcriptions of three songs (Embraceable You, The Man I Love, and Love Walked In) and composing a Fantasy on Porgy and Bess for two pianos. In Hollywood in 1937 for work on the film The Goldwyn Follies, Love Walked In was one of Gershwin's last compositions -- he died July 11 -- and the rudimentary published arrangement suggests that he was not through with it. In this form it almost cries out for the attention of a skilled composer, which Grainger supplies, opening by elaborating upon the verse before honoring the chorus' noble simplicity, a melody Gershwin had had tucked away in his Tune Book for many years and that he thought of as "Brahmsian." Grainger enunciates it again, now enveloped in a halo of arpeggios before modulating and garlanding it in a shower of rapt tremolandi and, finally, in a chordal soaring radiance, to fade out slowly with a certain diffidence. Despite its elaboration, the song still seems incomplete, a lack only Gershwin could have supplied. Nevertheless, Grainger's transcription deserves a place of honor beside the rapt hymn Billy Mayerl made of Johnny Green's Body and Soul.

(AllMusic)

Please take note that the audio AND sheet music ARE NOT mine. Feel free to change the video quality to a minimum of 480p for the best watching experience.

Performers: Martin Jones (Wyastone Estate Ltd., 1997), Leslie Howard (Australian Broadcasting Corp., 1990)
(   • Love Walked In (Arr. Grainger)  )
(   • Gershwin: Love Walked In  )
Sheet music: imslp.org/wiki/Love_Walked_In_(Gershwin%2C_George) (Chappell & Co. Inc., 1946)