The Type Specimen

The young Percy Grainger, looking

Like Vladimir Putin bewigged,

Was up to all sorts of odd things,

From fresh folk-music arrangements

To avant-garde experiments

With beatless aleatorics,

From sexual flagellation

In keen sadomasochism

To loud pro-Nordic racism,

And that hardly touches his range.

He would build his own museum,

Rate himself ninth-greatest all time

Of the classical composers

And declare himself a failure.

He left Australia to claim it

As a lifelong expatriate

Patriot, wrote for marching bands

Earnestly as for symphonies

And built elaborate machines

To auto-generate music,

Proclaiming them the true future

Of composition, not humans,

While to this day he is best known

To those aficionados

Of soothing, nostalgic pieces

Who still are fond of his setting

Of the folk dance, Country Gardens.

Now, for your homework this evening,

Articulate human nature

From holotype Percy Grainger.