The year 1935 saw Grainger’s arrangement of an authentic Chinese tune that he had read about in
A Theory of Evolving Tonality (1932) by the American musicologist, composer, organist and conductor, Joseph Yasser (1893–1981). It contained examples of tunes and authentic ways of harmonizing them. Grainger took the tune
Beautiful Fresh Flower and harmonized it in the Kung Scale of the pentatonic series which Yasser provided in his book. The same melody, referring as it does to the jasmine, was also used by Puccini in
Turandot.
from notes by Barry Peter Ould © 2002
