Extracted from Grainger's "Jungle Book Cycle, The Beaches of Lukannon is the tragic centerpiece of the collection, and arguably the strongest piece musically and emotionally. It tells us the tale of the tragic slaughter of seals by wicked sealers from the seals' perspective.

Program Notes

"My Kipling 'Jungle Book' Cycle, begun in 1898 and finished in 1947, was composed as a protest against civilization." (Grainger's program note, 1947) Percy Grainger (1882-1961) studied at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, Germany from 1895-1901 (aged 13-19). Grainger's mother Rose wrote her husband John of her fears that young Percy was becoming "more Germanized every day." In response to Rose's concern, and to "tickle up the British Lion in him," John (who was estranged from Rose) sent Percy, among other things, several books by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936). Kipling's writings captivated Percy immediately, and he soon started writing choral settings of the poetry, especially those of Kipling's Jungle Books. Grainger's settings of the poetry of Kipling are as extensive as his settings of British folk music; Kay Freyfus's catalog of Grainger's manuscript scores lists 36 settings, though Grainger in a 1926 letter to Kipling mentions "some 40 or 50" settings. Grainger felt a strong kinship for Kiplin's writing, and Kiplins appreciated and approved of Grainger's work at setting his poetry. Grainger played several of his choral settings for Kipling during a meeting at Kipling's home in 1905; of Grainger's settings of his poetry, Kipling said, "Till now I've had to reply on black and white, but you do the thing for me in color." The Beaches of Lukannon is the centerpiece of the cycle, and arguably the strongest piece musically and emotionally. It tells us the tale of the tragic slaughter of seals by wicked sealers from the seals' perspective. The opening section, told from the point of view of a seal elder, recounts what the beaches of the Bering Sea Island of Lukannon originally were for the seals – their annual meeting (and mating) opportunity. The central section, reminiscent of the music of Charles Ives in its shifting chromatics, conveys the beauty of the surroundings "before the sealers came." The final section musically revisits the opening material, but in a smore somber mode.