Gordon Green (pianist)

Gordon Green was born in Barnsley, just outside the village of Darton, England. The son of the local headteacher, he started piano at first with his mother and then with a local visiting pianist who would come to his school to play for the children.N. Tsaldarakis (2021): Interview with Nick Green, son of Gordon Green. Unpublished. He attended Wakefield Grammar school and was subsequently educated at the Royal Manchester College of Music (RMCM), where he studied with Franck Merrick. At the end of his studies, he won the Gold Medal (1926) which included lessons with Egon Petri in Poland.{{Cite news |date=1945-08-02 |title=Music and Musicians: Gordon Green |page=4 |work=Liverpool Daily Post |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000650/19450802/081/0004?browse=False |access-date=2023-03-01}} The first time Green's name is encountered in the college's archives, is in connection to an examination concert (8 July 1925) playing the first movement of Brahms' F minor Piano Sonata.{{Cite book |author=Kennedy, Michael |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1341885621 |title=The history of the Royal Manchester College of Music, 1893–1972 |date=1971 |publisher=Manchester University Press |page=77 |oclc=1341885621}} His name is also mentioned soon after on March 9, 1926, when Green performed Bach's double piano concerto in C minor with composer and close friend Alan Rawsthorne.

Gordon Green became teacher of piano at the RMCM in the summer of 1945, and as a performer made appearances with orchestras such as the BBC Philharmonic, the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and Hallé Orchestra. Green is also the dedicatee of Alan Rawsthorne's Ballade in G♯ minor (1929), and the Four Bagatelles (1938).{{Cite book |author=Dressler, John Clay |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/474644163 |title=Alan Rawsthorne : a bio-bibliography |date=2004 |publisher=Praeger |isbn=0-313-30589-7 |oclc=474644163}} Moreover, he gave the premiere of Rawsthorne's Valse in c minor (c. 1927). He was also the performer of Rawsthorne's Piano Concerto: Green's own score is preserved in the RNCM Archives and contains some of his practice annotations and separate notes.RNCM Archive, item GB GB1179 AR-AR/1-AR/1/083d  Concerto no.1 version 2; contains annotations by Rawsthorne and Gordon Green. Gordon Green was the first pianist to perform works by Hindemith in England (1934), although his colleague at the RMCM, Franz Reizenstein, is credited with being the first to perform the composer's Three Sonatas in a concert at Wigmore Hall (1938).{{Cite news |last=E. |first=E. |date=1938-06-02 |title=The Music of Paul Hindemith |pages=10 |work=Liverpool Daily Post |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000650/19380602/010/0010 |access-date=2023-03-05}}

Despite having studied with Egon Petri, a former pupil of Ferruccio Busoni, Green considered himself a Leschetizkian, at least according to former pupils' accounts such as Martino Tirimo and Philip Fowke. This brings Green in closer alignment with his previous teacher, Franck Merrick, who had studied with Leschetizky. From the published concert reviews as well as his own extensive editing and preface comments on the use of the pedal, it becomes clear that sound was of paramount importance.{{Cite book |title=Oxford Keyboard Classics: Liszt. |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1971 |isbn=0193732173 |editor-last=Green |editor-first=Gordon |location=London & New York}} Furthermore, his interest in more modern repertoire, such as Bartok, Hindemith, Prokofiev, Falla, and the outputs of his contemporaries Rawsthorne, Pitfield and Arnold Bax among others, alongside canonic repertoire, such as works by Brahms, Liszt, Chopin, must have imbued his teaching with wider-ranging views on interpretation.

Green's numerous pupils include several concert artists and conservatoire professors, such as Philip Fowke (b. 1950), Martino Tirimo (b. 1942), Sir Stephen Hough (b. 1961),{{Cite web |title=Piano Man |url=https://serenademagazine.com/piano-man/ |access-date=2023-01-24 |website=Serenade |date=24 September 2017 |language=en-GB}} Martin Roscoe (b. 1952), Stephen Coombs (b. 1960), John P. R. Blakely (b. 1947), Peter Bithell,{{Cite web |title=Peter Bithell {{!}} Guildhall School of Music |url=https://www.gsmd.ac.uk/staff/peter-bithell |access-date=2023-03-01 |website=Guildhall School of Music}} Tessa Uys (b. 1948), Martin Jones (b. 1940), Richard McMahon, Christian Blackshaw,{{Cite web |title=Meet our alumni |url=https://www.ram.ac.uk/alumni/meet-our-alumni |access-date=2023-01-24 |website=Royal Academy of Music |language=en-GB}} MBE (b. 1949), Harold James Taylor (1925–2014), John McCabe (1939–2015), Malcolm Lipkin (1932–2017), [https://www.impulse-music.co.uk/tessauys/ Tessa Uys] (b. 1948), Heather Slade-Lipkin (1947–2017). Other notable musicians who trained with him during the course of their studies include Gordon Fergus-Thompson (b. 1952), Peter Donohoe, CBE (b. 1953), conductor Sir Simon Rattle (b. 1955) among many others. He also coached John Ogdon (1937–1989) for his participation in the 1962 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition, in which Ogdon won first prize (ex-aequo with Vladimir Ashkenazy).

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Later in his life, Green joined the teaching staff of the Royal Academy of Music in London. His hour-long interview with Alan Rawsthorne on BBC Radio 3 has been preserved as a non-digitised tape located in the British Library's Sound and Moving Image catalogue.{{Cite web |title=The British Library Sound and Moving Image Catalogue |url=http://cadensa.bl.uk/uhtbin/cgisirsi/?ps=r8D40B4Vzu/WORKS-FILE/53970059/9 |access-date=2023-03-01 |website=The British Library}} However, the broadcasts of his performances are now considered nonextant. What remains is the majority of the concert reviews and notices available through the British Newspaper Archive and The Musical Times (usually in the section Music in the Provinces).{{Cite journal |date=1945 |title=Music in the Provinces |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/934388 |journal=The Musical Times |volume=86 |issue=1228 |page=190 |jstor=934388 }} Among the few direct sources salvaged however, there is Gordon Green's edition of selected Liszt pieces for Oxford University Press,{{Cite book |author=Liszt, Franz |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1157090580 |title=Liszt: a selection |date=1973 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0-19-373217-3 |oclc=1157090580}} his letter to the editor printed in the Liverpool Daily Post (Music in Soviet Russia){{Cite news |date=1941-07-19 |title=Letters to the Editor: Music in Soviet Russia |page=2 |work=Liverpool Daily Post |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000650/19410719/042/0002?browse=False |access-date=2023-03-01}} and an essay titled 'Alan Rawsthorne: The Pre-War Years'.{{Cite web |title=Alan Rawsthorne: The pre-war years by Gordon Green |url=http://www.musicweb-international.com/rawsth/Green.htm |access-date=2023-01-24 |website=www.musicweb-international.com}} In the summer of 1980, few months before Green's death, a Hope Street Festival concert was presented featuring Stephen Hough, Martino Tirimo and Christian Blackshaw performing concertos with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Charles Groves in his honour (see relevant mention in Stephen Hough's interview to the Liverpool Daily Post, 1983).{{Cite news |last=Bawden |first=Rex |date=1983-01-21 |title=Rex Bawden on a super-bright Prospect. The World and his Feet and Hands. |pages=17 |work=Liverpool Daily Post |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0004924/19830121/017/0017?browse=False |access-date=2023-03-01}}

Following his death, the Gordon Green Memorial Scholarship was instituted at the Royal Northern College of Music. In the Musical Times of 1985 there is indeed a notice of John Ogdon's recital in aid of this fund.{{Cite journal |date=1985 |title=John Ogdon |url=https://doi.org/10.2307/965057 |journal=The Musical Times |volume=126 |issue=1713 |page=678 |doi=10.2307/965057 |jstor=965057 |url-access=subscription }} Nowadays, Green's presence is felt through scattered references, such as in Christopher Headington's journal article on Malcolm Lipkin and His Recent Music,{{Cite journal |last=Headington |first=Christopher |date=1989 |title=Malcolm Lipkin and his Recent Music |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/945320 |journal=Tempo |volume=169 |issue=169 |pages=28–33 |doi=10.1017/S0040298200025134 |jstor=945320 |s2cid=144424580 |access-date=2023-03-01 |url-access=subscription }} the slightly more extensive mention in Hamish Good's The Music of Malcolm Lipkin,{{Cite journal |last=Good |first=Hamish |date=1969 |title=The Music of Malcolm Lipkin |url=https://doi.org/10.2307/954523 |journal= The Musical Times|volume=110 |issue=1522 |pages=1237–1240 |doi=10.2307/954523 |jstor=954523 |url-access=subscription }} or McCabe's interview.{{Cite web |last=Briggs |first=Bob |title=Seventy Not Out! An Interview with the UK composer John McCabe |url=http://www.musicweb-international.com/sandh/2009/jul-dec09/mccabe_interview.htm |access-date=2023-03-05 |website=Seen and Heard International}} Quite a few of his former pupils have been active in their efforts to commemorate or otherwise pay tribute to Green, including Stephen Hough (see references in his book Rough Ideas, but also in his interviews and posts on social media),{{Cite web |last=Woodall |first=Tim |title=Rough Ideas by Stephen Hough {{!}} Classical Music Books |url=https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571350483-rough-ideas/ |access-date=2023-01-24 |website=Faber |language=en-US}} Philip Fowke, Martino Tirimo. More specifically, such efforts include Philip Fowke's lengthy interview to Alistair Hogarth{{Citation |title=Alisdair Hogarth interviews Philip Fowke and John Blakely about Gordon Green OBE | date=21 September 2015 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk0SPgOxQmw |language=en |access-date=2023-01-24}} and a forthcoming PhD thesis (2023) by Natalie Tsaldarakis which includes previously unpublished material and sources (City, University of London, supervisor: Dr. Ian Pace).{{Cite web |date=2021-10-29 |title=Natalie Tsaldarakis {{!}} City, University of London |url=https://www.city.ac.uk/about/people/research-students/natalie-tsaldarakis |access-date=2023-01-24 |website=www.city.ac.uk |language=en-GB}}

Gordon Green was conferred a diamond jubilee year Fellowship from the Manchester College of Music (FRMCM Honorary Fellow) in 1953. He died from cancer in 1981, shortly after being conferred OBE{{Cite web |title=Page 1 {{!}} Supplement 48467, 30 December 1980 {{!}} London Gazette {{!}} The Gazette |url=https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/48467/supplement/1 |access-date=2023-01-24 |website=www.thegazette.co.uk}} in the Queen's New Year Honours List 1981.

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Category:1905 births

Category:1981 deaths

Category:Academics of the Royal Academy of Music

Category:Academics of the Royal Northern College of Music

Category:Alumni of the Royal Manchester College of Music

Category:English pianists

Category:Musicians from Barnsley

Category:People educated at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefield