Hyperion Records

The power of love tells the story of a maiden who has a clandestine lover. Her seven brothers challenge him to combat because he has made love to their sister without ‘asking their rede’. In the fight that follows he kills the seven brothers and the maiden swears that even if he had killed her father she would not be minded to leave him. Grainger collected this ballad during his ‘folk-fishing’ trip to Jutland with the Danish folklorist, Evald Tang Kristensen on 25 August 1922. The singer, Mrs Ane Nielsen Post, remembered only the last verse. Grainger composed his setting for solo voice with instrumental accompaniment in a burst of inspiration during the period 3–6 September 1922 in memory of his mother who had committed suicide the previous April. Like many of Grainger’s works it passed through various guises, finally appearing as the first movement of his Danish Folk-Music Suite completed in 1928. Interestingly, a particular string sound is required in this piece, Grainger instructing the violas and cellos to change the tuned pitches of strings on their instruments. Of this work Grainger wrote: ‘Love’s sway is firm and ruthless. The tune and words of The power of love seemed to me to match my soul-seared mood of that time—my new born awareness of the doom-fraught undertow that lurks in all deep love.’

from notes by Barry Peter Ould © 1996