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Harry Plunket Greene

August 27, 2023

Harry Plunket Greene (24 June 1865 – 19 August 1936) was an Irish baritone who was most famous in the formal concert and oratorio repertoire. He wrote and lectured on his art, and was active in the field of musical competitions and examinations. He also wrote Where the Bright Waters Meet (1924) a book about fly fishing.

Harry Plunket Greene

Early life and training Edit

Plunket Greene was born in Dublin, the son of Richard Jonas Greene, a barrister, and Louisa Lilias Plunket, a children's writer, granddaughter of William Conyngham Plunket, Lord Chancellor of Ireland.[1] He was educated at Clifton College[2] and initially expected to follow Law at Oxford. However, after he was 'smashed up' in a football accident he had a year's convalescence.

Discovering his musical calling he studied under Arthur Barraclough in Dublin before attending the Stuttgart Conservatory for two years under Antonín Hromada in the early 1880s. He also studied in Florence with Luigi Vannuccini (a pupil of Francesco Lamperti), and in London with J. B. Welsh and Alfred Blume.[3]

Early career Edit

He made his debut in London (at the People's Palace, Mile End) in 1888, in Handel's Messiah,[3] and in the next year appeared in Gounod's Redemption. In 1890 he made operatic debuts as Commendatore in Don Giovanni and as the Duke of Verona in Romeo et Juliette, at Covent Garden. Thereafter he elected to make his career in recital.

In oratorio, his first Festival appearance was at Worcester in 1890. Plunket Greene created the title part in Hubert Parry's Job, at the Gloucester Festival in 1892. This includes the Lamentation of Job, an extremely long (28-page) and sustained oratorio scena. David Bispham said of his performances that he 'created the part and rendered it many times with superb dramatic feeling.'[4] Plunket became the original exponent or dedicatee of many of the lyrical works of Parry,[3]

In 1891 Bernard Shaw found him "fairly equal to the occasion in the wonderful duet" from Bach's Whitsuntide Canatata, O, Ewiges Feuer, with the Bach Choir. In April 1892 (sharing the platform with Joseph Joachim and Franz Xaver Neruda, Fanny Davies, Alfredo Piatti and Agnes Zimmermann (piano)) he sang admirably in his first set (Jean-Baptiste Lully, Peter Cornelius and Robert Schumann) in a Monday Popular Concert, but made little of his second group. In November 1893 at the first of George Henschel's London Symphony Orchestra concerts for the season he performed Stanford's new song, "Prince Madoc's Farewell", so patriotically 'that he once or twice almost burst into the next key.' Shaw's strictures on his diction were no doubt taken very seriously by the singer, who studied to make absolute clarity and naturalness of diction a central point of his teaching and example.[5] His early accompanist Henry Bird gained an appointment as accompanist to the Chappell Ballad Concerts after his partnership with Plunket Greene in the Hungarian Songs of Francis Korbay.[6]

Recitals–partnership with Leonard Borwick Edit

On 11 January 1895 at St James's Hall, Leonard Borwick and Greene gave the first complete public performance of Schumann's Dichterliebe to be heard in London. Their musical partnership was still active in 1913, but the demands of their separate tours became so great by the early 1900s that they agreed not to continue their former recital programme unless it could be done wholeheartedly. Plunket Greene toured especially in the United States, where he considered the audiences especially attentive and appreciative, and in Germany. He also liked northern English audiences better than southern ones, and liked singing to audiences of public schoolboys.[7]

Gerontius and after Edit

Plunket Greene was a friend of Edward Elgar, and appeared in his Malvern Concert Club events.[8] He was the original baritone in the first (October 1900) performance (Birmingham Festival) of Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius, alongside Marie Brema (angel) and Edward Lloyd (soul), under Hans Richter. In June 1900 Elgar had written to August Jaeger, "he sings both bass bits and won't they suit him. Gosh."[9]

Plunket Greene included a selection from the Songs of Travel by Ralph Vaughan Williams in recital in February 1905. Then (or soon afterwards) the composer heard him and dedicated the songs to him, and Greene afterwards quoted from them, and from Silent Noon (from the House of Life cycle), in his work on Interpretation in Song. Greene was responsible for establishing these songs in the English concert repertoire, where he was constantly attempting to raise the standard and quality of appreciation of English songs through his programming.[10]

He supported Gervase Elwes from the start of the latter's professional career and was his lifelong friend. At Elwes' audition for the Royal College of Music in 1903 Greene wrote to encourage him with the favourable reactions of Parry and Stanford,[11] and soon afterwards put him up for the Savile Club in London.[12] In 1906, he joined the party at Brigg to sing in the second festival there organised by Elwes and Percy Grainger, and declared his wish to be in many more of them.[13] When Elwes died in 1921, Greene wrote "I always felt he was the man I most looked up to."[14] 'In the St Matthew Passion, (he) made us feel that he of all men was best fitted to tell us the greatest story in the world.'[15]

On 24 January 1910 he appeared in the memorial concert at Queen's Hall for August Jaeger (Elgar's 'Nimrod'), singing a group of songs by Walford Davies, and Hans Sachs's monologue from Die Meistersinger.[16] He made his first appearance in Henry Wood's Promenade Concerts at the Queen's Hall in October 1914 singing Stanford's Songs of the Sea with the Alexandra Palace Choral Society.[17] He had declined to fulfil an engagement to sing them there for the Stock Exchange Orchestral Society in 1907 on hearing that they still used the high English concert pitch.[18]

Competitions and festivals, teaching Edit

In his later years, Plunket Greene was busily involved in the organisation of music events and in teaching and administration. In 1923 he made his fifteenth voyage across the Atlantic (the first had been in 1893), on this occasion to act as a judge in Musical Competitions throughout Canada. From New York, he went to Toronto by train to join Granville Bantock. This was to be at the five Festivals of Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. This was the first Ontario Festival (Toronto) (with Robert Watkin-Mills and Boris Hambourg also in attendance), the 6th in Winnipeg (with Herbert Witherspoon and Cecil Forsyth assisting), where the Earl Grey trophy was competed for, the 16th in Edmonton (Alberta), with choirs from Lethbridge and Calgary, and in Prince Albert they were with Herbert Howells. The promotion and encouragement of these events provided not only a great spectacle and opportunity for music—making but also infused a competitive spirit into the works of choirs, singers and instrumentalists in the award of prizes (in the tradition begun at Kendal, UK in c.1889), tending to the encouragement of excellence. Plunket Greene repeated the experience in Saskatchewan in 1931, together with Harold Samuel, Maurice Jacobson and Hugh Roberton.[19]

Among his pupils were Keith Falkner, whom Plunket Greene coached in his interpretation of the Lamentation of Job in Parry's Job,[20] Robert Easton,[21] and Margaret Ritchie.[22]

Personal life Edit

Plunkett Greene married Gwendolen Maud Parry, Parry's younger daughter, in 1899. The couple had three children: Richard Plunket Greene (born 1901), David Plunket Greene (born 1904) and Olivia Plunket Greene (born 1907). The marriage was an unhappy one, and they separated in 1920.

His grandson Alexander Plunkett Greene married the fashion designer Mary Quant in 1953.[23]

Plunket Greene died on 19 August 1936, aged 71. He was buried in the churchyard of Hurstbourne Priors, near the graves of his two sons.[24]

Publications Edit

Recordings Edit

Harry Plunket Greene recorded songs both for the Gramophone Company and Columbia Records.

Published recordings for the Gramophone Company (1904–08):

  • 2-42776 Abschied (Schubert). 22 January 1904; matrix 4891b
  • 3-2016 Off to Philadelphia (Battison Haynes). 22 January 1904; matrix 4892b
  • 3-2017 a) Mary (Goodheart) b) Quick, we have but a second (Stanford). 22 January 1904; matrix 4894b
  • 3-2018 Father O'Flynn (arr Stanford). 22 January 1904; matrix 4894b
  • 3-2059 (a) Eva Toole (b) Trottin' to the fair (Stanford). 14 February 1904; matrix 5065b
  • 3-2060 The Donovans (Needham). 14 February 1904; matrix 5067b
  • 3-2089 Over here (Wood). 4 January 1904; matrix 4779b
  • 3-2333 a) The happy farmer (Somervell) b) Black Sheila of the silver eye (Harty). 30 May 1905; matrix 2114e
  • 3-2334 The gentle maiden. 30 May 1905; matrix 2116e
  • 3-2335 Little red fox (arr. Somervell). 30 May 1905; matrix 2113e
  • 3-2336 Little Mary Cassidy. 30 May 1905; matrix 2121e
  • 3-2337 Johneen (Stanford). 30 May 1905; matrix 2120e
  • 4-2017 Molly Brannigan (arr Stanford). 14 December 1908; matrix 9282e
  • 02174 Off to Philadelphia (Battison Haynes). 14 December 1908; matrix 2741f (12")

Columbia (electric) recordings:

  • DB 1321 Poor Old Horse (Trad). 13 November 1933; matrix CA14156-1
  • DB 1321 The Garden Where The Praties Grow (Trad). 10 January 1934; matrix CA 14157-2
  • DB 1377 Trottin' to the Fair (Stanford). 10 January 1934; matrix CA14158-3
  • DB 1377 The Hurdy-Gurdy Man (Schubert). 10 January 1934; matrix CA14259-1 wav available [Dec 2009] from [1]

In addition to recordings of songs, he also recorded a Lecture 'On The Art of Singing' for the Columbia Records International Educational Society series (Lecture 75), on four sides, Disc numbers D40149-40150.[25]

References Edit

  1. ^ "Harry Plunket Greene". Irish Heritage. Retrieved 3 April 2020.
  2. ^ "Clifton College Register" Muirhead, J.A.O. p70: Bristol; J.W Arrowsmith for Old Cliftonian Society; April, 1948
  3. ^ a b c Eaglefield-Hull 1924.
  4. ^ Bispham 1920, 159.
  5. ^ Shaw 1932, i, 107, 129; ii, 73, 89; iii, 86–88.
  6. ^ Harold Simpson, 'Ch. XI: Plunket Greene, and Stanford's Irish songs' in A Century of Ballads, 1810-1910 (Mills and Boon, London 1910), pp. 237-247.
  7. ^ Plunket Greene 1934 (Blue Danube to Shannon), 74–89.
  8. ^ Young 1956, 126–127.
  9. ^ Young 1956, 84.
  10. ^ Rufus Hallmark, 'Robert Louis Stevenson, Ralph Vaughan Williams and their Songs of Travel,' in Brian Adams and Robin Wells (Eds.), Vaughan Williams Essays Vol 44 (Ashgate Publishing, 2003), pp. 135, 138.
  11. ^ Elwes 1935, 127.
  12. ^ Elwes 1935, 155.
  13. ^ Elwes 1935, 165.
  14. ^ Elwes 1935, 281–282.
  15. ^ Elwes 1935, 296–297.
  16. ^ Elkin 1944, 41.
  17. ^ Wood 1946, 295: Elkin 1944, 70.
  18. ^ Elkin 1944, 104.
  19. ^ From Blue Danube to Shannon, Chapters II and VII.
  20. ^ Brook 1958, 76.
  21. ^ "Chesterfield Items", Derbyshire Times, 24 December 1943, p. 5
  22. ^ Shawe-Taylor, Desmond."Ritchie, Margaret", Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press, 2002 (subscription required)
  23. ^ "Mary Quant: 'You have to work at staying slim - but it's worth it' - Telegraph". fashion.telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 13 April 2023.
  24. ^ . Archived from the original on 3 August 2014. Retrieved 17 January 2015.
  25. ^ Catalogue of Columbia Records, September 1933 (Columbia Graphophone Company, London 1933), p. 374.

Sources Edit

  • D. Bispham: A Quaker Singer's Recollections (London: Macmillan, 1920)
  • D. Brook: Singers of Today (London: Rockliff, 1958), 'Keith Falkner', pp 75–78.
  • Arthur Eaglefield Hull: A Dictionary of Modern Music and Musicians (London: Dent, 1924)
  • R. Elkin: Queen's Hall 1893–1941 (London: Rider, 1944)
  • W. Elwes and R. Elwes: Gervase Elwes, The Story of his Life (London: Grayson & Grayson, 1935)
  • H. Plunket Greene: From Blue Danube to Shannon (London: Philip Allan, 1934)
  • M. Scott: The Record of Singing to 1914 (London: Duckworth, 1977)
  • G.B. Shaw: Music in London 1890–1894, 3 vols. (London: Constable & Co., 1932)
  • H. Wood: My Life of Music (London: Gollancz, 1938)
  • P.M. Young: Letters of Edward Elgar (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1956)

External links Edit

August 27, 2023
harry, plunket, greene, june, 1865, august, 1936, irish, baritone, most, famous, formal, concert, oratorio, repertoire, wrote, lectured, active, field, musical, competitions, examinations, also, wrote, where, bright, waters, meet, 1924, book, about, fishing, c. Harry Plunket Greene 24 June 1865 19 August 1936 was an Irish baritone who was most famous in the formal concert and oratorio repertoire He wrote and lectured on his art and was active in the field of musical competitions and examinations He also wrote Where the Bright Waters Meet 1924 a book about fly fishing Harry Plunket Greene Contents 1 Early life and training 2 Early career 3 Recitals partnership with Leonard Borwick 4 Gerontius and after 5 Competitions and festivals teaching 6 Personal life 7 Publications 8 Recordings 9 References 9 1 Sources 10 External linksEarly life and training EditPlunket Greene was born in Dublin the son of Richard Jonas Greene a barrister and Louisa Lilias Plunket a children s writer granddaughter of William Conyngham Plunket Lord Chancellor of Ireland 1 He was educated at Clifton College 2 and initially expected to follow Law at Oxford However after he was smashed up in a football accident he had a year s convalescence Discovering his musical calling he studied under Arthur Barraclough in Dublin before attending the Stuttgart Conservatory for two years under Antonin Hromada in the early 1880s He also studied in Florence with Luigi Vannuccini a pupil of Francesco Lamperti and in London with J B Welsh and Alfred Blume 3 Early career EditHe made his debut in London at the People s Palace Mile End in 1888 in Handel s Messiah 3 and in the next year appeared in Gounod s Redemption In 1890 he made operatic debuts as Commendatore in Don Giovanni and as the Duke of Verona in Romeo et Juliette at Covent Garden Thereafter he elected to make his career in recital In oratorio his first Festival appearance was at Worcester in 1890 Plunket Greene created the title part in Hubert Parry s Job at the Gloucester Festival in 1892 This includes the Lamentation of Job an extremely long 28 page and sustained oratorio scena David Bispham said of his performances that he created the part and rendered it many times with superb dramatic feeling 4 Plunket became the original exponent or dedicatee of many of the lyrical works of Parry 3 In 1891 Bernard Shaw found him fairly equal to the occasion in the wonderful duet from Bach s Whitsuntide Canatata O Ewiges Feuer with the Bach Choir In April 1892 sharing the platform with Joseph Joachim and Franz Xaver Neruda Fanny Davies Alfredo Piatti and Agnes Zimmermann piano he sang admirably in his first set Jean Baptiste Lully Peter Cornelius and Robert Schumann in a Monday Popular Concert but made little of his second group In November 1893 at the first of George Henschel s London Symphony Orchestra concerts for the season he performed Stanford s new song Prince Madoc s Farewell so patriotically that he once or twice almost burst into the next key Shaw s strictures on his diction were no doubt taken very seriously by the singer who studied to make absolute clarity and naturalness of diction a central point of his teaching and example 5 His early accompanist Henry Bird gained an appointment as accompanist to the Chappell Ballad Concerts after his partnership with Plunket Greene in the Hungarian Songs of Francis Korbay 6 Recitals partnership with Leonard Borwick EditOn 11 January 1895 at St James s Hall Leonard Borwick and Greene gave the first complete public performance of Schumann s Dichterliebe to be heard in London Their musical partnership was still active in 1913 but the demands of their separate tours became so great by the early 1900s that they agreed not to continue their former recital programme unless it could be done wholeheartedly Plunket Greene toured especially in the United States where he considered the audiences especially attentive and appreciative and in Germany He also liked northern English audiences better than southern ones and liked singing to audiences of public schoolboys 7 Gerontius and after EditPlunket Greene was a friend of Edward Elgar and appeared in his Malvern Concert Club events 8 He was the original baritone in the first October 1900 performance Birmingham Festival of Elgar s The Dream of Gerontius alongside Marie Brema angel and Edward Lloyd soul under Hans Richter In June 1900 Elgar had written to August Jaeger he sings both bass bits and won t they suit him Gosh 9 Plunket Greene included a selection from the Songs of Travel by Ralph Vaughan Williams in recital in February 1905 Then or soon afterwards the composer heard him and dedicated the songs to him and Greene afterwards quoted from them and from Silent Noon from the House of Life cycle in his work on Interpretation in Song Greene was responsible for establishing these songs in the English concert repertoire where he was constantly attempting to raise the standard and quality of appreciation of English songs through his programming 10 He supported Gervase Elwes from the start of the latter s professional career and was his lifelong friend At Elwes audition for the Royal College of Music in 1903 Greene wrote to encourage him with the favourable reactions of Parry and Stanford 11 and soon afterwards put him up for the Savile Club in London 12 In 1906 he joined the party at Brigg to sing in the second festival there organised by Elwes and Percy Grainger and declared his wish to be in many more of them 13 When Elwes died in 1921 Greene wrote I always felt he was the man I most looked up to 14 In the St Matthew Passion he made us feel that he of all men was best fitted to tell us the greatest story in the world 15 On 24 January 1910 he appeared in the memorial concert at Queen s Hall for August Jaeger Elgar s Nimrod singing a group of songs by Walford Davies and Hans Sachs s monologue from Die Meistersinger 16 He made his first appearance in Henry Wood s Promenade Concerts at the Queen s Hall in October 1914 singing Stanford s Songs of the Sea with the Alexandra Palace Choral Society 17 He had declined to fulfil an engagement to sing them there for the Stock Exchange Orchestral Society in 1907 on hearing that they still used the high English concert pitch 18 Competitions and festivals teaching EditIn his later years Plunket Greene was busily involved in the organisation of music events and in teaching and administration In 1923 he made his fifteenth voyage across the Atlantic the first had been in 1893 on this occasion to act as a judge in Musical Competitions throughout Canada From New York he went to Toronto by train to join Granville Bantock This was to be at the five Festivals of Ontario Manitoba Saskatchewan Alberta and British Columbia This was the first Ontario Festival Toronto with Robert Watkin Mills and Boris Hambourg also in attendance the 6th in Winnipeg with Herbert Witherspoon and Cecil Forsyth assisting where the Earl Grey trophy was competed for the 16th in Edmonton Alberta with choirs from Lethbridge and Calgary and in Prince Albert they were with Herbert Howells The promotion and encouragement of these events provided not only a great spectacle and opportunity for music making but also infused a competitive spirit into the works of choirs singers and instrumentalists in the award of prizes in the tradition begun at Kendal UK in c 1889 tending to the encouragement of excellence Plunket Greene repeated the experience in Saskatchewan in 1931 together with Harold Samuel Maurice Jacobson and Hugh Roberton 19 Among his pupils were Keith Falkner whom Plunket Greene coached in his interpretation of the Lamentation of Job in Parry s Job 20 Robert Easton 21 and Margaret Ritchie 22 Personal life EditPlunkett Greene married Gwendolen Maud Parry Parry s younger daughter in 1899 The couple had three children Richard Plunket Greene born 1901 David Plunket Greene born 1904 and Olivia Plunket Greene born 1907 The marriage was an unhappy one and they separated in 1920 His grandson Alexander Plunkett Greene married the fashion designer Mary Quant in 1953 23 Plunket Greene died on 19 August 1936 aged 71 He was buried in the churchyard of Hurstbourne Priors near the graves of his two sons 24 Publications EditInterpretation in Song London Macmillan 1912 Pilot and other stories London Macmillan 1916 Where the Bright Waters Meet London Philip Allan 1924 From Blue Danube to Shannon London Philip Allan 1935 Charles Villiers Stanford London Edward Arnold 1935 Recordings EditHarry Plunket Greene recorded songs both for the Gramophone Company and Columbia Records Published recordings for the Gramophone Company 1904 08 2 42776 Abschied Schubert 22 January 1904 matrix 4891b 3 2016 Off to Philadelphia Battison Haynes 22 January 1904 matrix 4892b 3 2017 a Mary Goodheart b Quick we have but a second Stanford 22 January 1904 matrix 4894b 3 2018 Father O Flynn arr Stanford 22 January 1904 matrix 4894b 3 2059 a Eva Toole b Trottin to the fair Stanford 14 February 1904 matrix 5065b 3 2060 The Donovans Needham 14 February 1904 matrix 5067b 3 2089 Over here Wood 4 January 1904 matrix 4779b 3 2333 a The happy farmer Somervell b Black Sheila of the silver eye Harty 30 May 1905 matrix 2114e 3 2334 The gentle maiden 30 May 1905 matrix 2116e 3 2335 Little red fox arr Somervell 30 May 1905 matrix 2113e 3 2336 Little Mary Cassidy 30 May 1905 matrix 2121e 3 2337 Johneen Stanford 30 May 1905 matrix 2120e 4 2017 Molly Brannigan arr Stanford 14 December 1908 matrix 9282e 02174 Off to Philadelphia Battison Haynes 14 December 1908 matrix 2741f 12 Columbia electric recordings DB 1321 Poor Old Horse Trad 13 November 1933 matrix CA14156 1 DB 1321 The Garden Where The Praties Grow Trad 10 January 1934 matrix CA 14157 2 DB 1377 Trottin to the Fair Stanford 10 January 1934 matrix CA14158 3 DB 1377 The Hurdy Gurdy Man Schubert 10 January 1934 matrix CA14259 1 wav available Dec 2009 from 1 In addition to recordings of songs he also recorded a Lecture On The Art of Singing for the Columbia Records International Educational Society series Lecture 75 on four sides Disc numbers D40149 40150 25 References Edit Harry Plunket Greene Irish Heritage Retrieved 3 April 2020 Clifton College Register Muirhead J A O p70 Bristol J W Arrowsmith for Old Cliftonian Society April 1948 a b c Eaglefield Hull 1924 Bispham 1920 159 Shaw 1932 i 107 129 ii 73 89 iii 86 88 Harold Simpson Ch XI Plunket Greene and Stanford s Irish songs in A Century of Ballads 1810 1910 Mills and Boon London 1910 pp 237 247 Plunket Greene 1934 Blue Danube to Shannon 74 89 Young 1956 126 127 Young 1956 84 Rufus Hallmark Robert Louis Stevenson Ralph Vaughan Williams and their Songs of Travel in Brian Adams and Robin Wells Eds Vaughan Williams Essays Vol 44 Ashgate Publishing 2003 pp 135 138 Elwes 1935 127 Elwes 1935 155 Elwes 1935 165 Elwes 1935 281 282 Elwes 1935 296 297 Elkin 1944 41 Wood 1946 295 Elkin 1944 70 Elkin 1944 104 From Blue Danube to Shannon Chapters II and VII Brook 1958 76 Chesterfield Items Derbyshire Times 24 December 1943 p 5 Shawe Taylor Desmond Ritchie Margaret Grove Music Online Oxford University Press 2002 subscription required Mary Quant You have to work at staying slim but it s worth it Telegraph fashion telegraph co uk Retrieved 13 April 2023 Biography Archived from the original on 3 August 2014 Retrieved 17 January 2015 Catalogue of Columbia Records September 1933 Columbia Graphophone Company London 1933 p 374 Sources Edit D Bispham A Quaker Singer s Recollections London Macmillan 1920 D Brook Singers of Today London Rockliff 1958 Keith Falkner pp 75 78 Arthur Eaglefield Hull A Dictionary of Modern Music and Musicians London Dent 1924 R Elkin Queen s Hall 1893 1941 London Rider 1944 W Elwes and R Elwes Gervase Elwes The Story of his Life London Grayson amp Grayson 1935 H Plunket Greene From Blue Danube to Shannon London Philip Allan 1934 M Scott The Record of Singing to 1914 London Duckworth 1977 G B Shaw Music in London 1890 1894 3 vols London Constable amp Co 1932 H Wood My Life of Music London Gollancz 1938 P M Young Letters of Edward Elgar London Geoffrey Bles 1956 External links Edit Greene Harry Plunket Thom s Irish Who s Who Dublin Alexander Thom and Son Ltd 1923 pp 95 96 via Wikisource Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Harry Plunket Greene amp oldid 1161133739, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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