Wedding

Amiable, boyish Percy Aldrich Grainger, 46, was sternly rehearsing the Hollywood Bowl symphony orchestra. He was for the first time in his life to do three things at Hollywood this week, and he must do each with eclat. The Hollywood crowd, although it pays only 25-c- a seat, is exigent. The last week in July they jeered and cat-called at soloist Aaron Copland because they did not like his Jazz Concerto. That must not happen to Percy Aldridge Grainger.

One new thing for him was to conduct the orchestra in the Hollywood Bowl, vast amphitheatre built in a scoop of Hollywood's hills.

Another new thing for him was the premiere of his new composition, "To a Nordic Princess." His first public concerts were at the piano, when he was 10, in Melbourne, his birthplace. His mother taught him the instrument. Later she accompanied him on tours on all the continents. In Norway he became the friend of the late Edward Hagerup Grieg. He was chosen to play the Grieg Piano Concerto at the Leeds Festival (1907), and after Grieg's death he played Memorial concerts for him at Copenhagen and London. To Grieg, Percy Grainger owes his start in folk music. He has made more than 500 phonograph records; has composed more than 60 pieces for piano, voice, orchestra, chamber. But, he fondly repeats, his mother was the chief artistic influence in his life. She died in 1922; and he never married.

The third new thing for him to do in the Hollywood amphitheatre was to marry a Viola Strom. "To a Nordic Princess" was written for her. After its rendition, Australian Percy and Nordic Viola would take each other respectively for man and wife, with orchestra for altar, vast audience for attendant friends and in the glare of light.