 The conductor John Eliot Gardiner describes Grainger as " a true original in terms of orchestration and imaginative instrumentation " , whose terseness of expression is reminiscent in style both of the 20th century Second Viennese School and the Italian madrigalists of the 16th and 17th centuries . Malcolm Gillies , a Grainger scholar , writes of Grainger 's style that " you know it is ' Grainger ' when you have heard about one second of a piece " . The music 's most individual characteristic , Gillies argues , is its texture – " the weft of the fabric " , according to Grainger . Different textures are defined by Grainger as " smooth " , " grained " and " prickly " . 
