Humphrey Procter-Gregg

He was born in Kirkby Lonsdale and educated at King William's College on the Isle of Man and at Peterhouse Cambridge, where he was organ scholar.[http://www.editiondb.com/Procter-Greggtext.htm Biography at EditionDB] He studied music with Charles Villiers Stanford (among his last pupils), Charles Wood and Julius Harrison at the Royal College of Music in London and gained a studentship at La Scala in Milan.Leach, Gerald. British Composer Profiles (2012), p. 165

After graduating, he went on to work at various opera houses (including Covent Garden, Thomas Beecham's British National Opera Company and Carl Rosa) as stage manager, producer or manager. While head of the Opera Department at the Royal College of Music in the 1920s he staged managed and designed their first productions of Vaughan Williams' The Shepherds of the Delectable Mountains and Hugh the Drover, and produced Sir John in Love.[http://vaughanwilliams.org.uk/letter/vwl566 Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Humphrey Procter-Gregg, June 1924]

In 1936 Procter-Gregg became Reader in Music at the University of Manchester, founding the Chair of Music as Emeritus Professor in 1954 and retiring in 1962, when he was succeeded by Hans Redlich. During his tenure the students included Harrison Birtwistle, Peter Maxwell Davies, Alexander Goehr, Peter Hope, Elgar Howarth, John Ogdon, John McCabe, Ernest Tomlinson and David Wilde.Rupprecht, Philip. [https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/british-musical-modernism/39720D6D49CB9A92FD4FDD0850209770 British Musical Modernism: The Manchester Group and their Contemporaries] (2015) Hope recalled him as "very old fashioned. He just about got as far as Delius, but nothing beyond that".[http://www.musicweb-international.com/sandh/2010/Jul-Dec10/Peter_Hope_Interview.htm 'Peter Hope's 80th Birthday'], interview with Bob Briggs for Seen and Heard (2010) Peter Maxwell Davies was even more dismissive:[https://www.theguardian.com/music/2004/jun/19/classicalmusicandopera.proms2004 Moss, Stephen. 'Sounds and silence', in The Guardian, 19 June 2004]

"Procter-Gregg hated anything by Stravinsky or Bartok, and referred to Beethoven as that dreadful German bow-wow. I went there to do composition, but he disliked me so much and he disliked the music I wrote so much and I disliked him so much that more or less by mutual agreement I was thrown off the composition course".

While at Manchester he encouraged the performance and composition of chamber music, and founded the Ad Solem Ensemble. The chamber choir is still in existence.[https://www.universitychorus.org.uk/ad-solem Ad Solem – University of Manchester Choral Programme] His designs for the Denmark Road concert hall gave it one of the best acoustics for chamber music in the north of England. His home while in Manchester was at 66 Platt Lane, Rusholme.[http://www.editiondb.com/Procter-Greggmemoir1.htm Memoirs by former Manchester students, EditionDb]

In 1962 he became director of the London Opera Centre, but was forced to resign in

April 1964 due to ill-health.The Times, 22 April 1964, p 12 He retired to live in Windermere, Cumbria to focus on opera translation and composing. In 1971 he was awarded the CBE for services to music. An 80th birthday tribute concert was held in Denmark Road on 31 October 1975, at which his Horn Sonata was played by Robert Ashworth. He died, aged 84, in a nursing home in Grange-over-Sands.Obituary, The Times, 22 April 1980, p. 16Almond, Michael. [https://d2vhizysjb6bpn.cloudfront.net/TOCC0539DIGIBKLT.pdf Notes to Toccata CD TOCC0539] (2019)

His compositions include a Clarinet Concerto (circa 1940) which has been recorded,[https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/english-clarinet-concertos English Clarinet Concertos, Epoch CDLX7153 (2006), Gramophone review, March 2006] works for voice and orchestra, two numbered string quartets, a string trio, four violin sonatas (including the 1936 Violin Sonata No. 1 in A minor, dedicated to Albert Sammons),[https://toccataclassics.com/product/humphrey-procter-gregg-chamber-music-volume-one/ Humphrey Procter-Gregg: Chamber Music, Volume One], Toccata Classics, TOCC0539 (2019) the Clarinet Sonata (1943) and the Horn Sonata in A (1975).[https://www.duttonvocalion.co.uk/proddetail.php?prod=CDLX7165 Dutton Vocalion CDLX7165 (2006)] For solo piano there are a set of 24 Preludes, four books of Westmoreland Sketches (published posthumously in 1983), the Piano Sonata in C minor (The Sea), and many shorter pieces. There are also numerous songs and short choral settings.[http://www.editiondb.com/Procter-Greggcompositions.htm List of works at EditionDB], compiled by Michael Almond and John Turner His final piece, Variations on an Air from Aberdeenshire for violin and piano, was completed just before his death.

Procter-Gregg produced around 20 opera translations and various other English adaptions of texts for music.[https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/page/947e6abb30d94659af71151c0023ed01 Radio Times, Issue 1119, 11th Mar 1945, p. 12]Procter-Gregg and others: ‘The Translator at Work’, Opera, Vol. 25 (1974), pp. 951–62, 1056–64; Vol. 26 (1975), pp. 242–50, 738–42 He compiled and edited the book Sir Thomas Beecham: Conductor and Impresario in 1972.{{cite book | editor-last=Procter-Gregg | editor-first=Humphrey | title=Beecham Remembered | location=London | publisher=Duckworth | year=1972 | isbn=0-7156-1117-8}}

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• [http://www.editiondb.com/Procter-Greggtext.htm Humphrey Procter-Gregg pages at EditionDB]
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKVdfNW3t08 Peter Bradley-Fulgoni plays Procter-Gregg, Piano Sonata "The Sea"]
• [https://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/rylands/special-collections/a-to-z/detail/?mms_id=992983876599901631 Humphrey Procter-Gregg Papers] at the John Rylands Library, Manchester

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Category:20th-century English classical composers

Category:1895 births

Category:1980 deaths

Category:English male classical composers

Category:20th-century English musicians

Category:People from Kirkby Lonsdale

Category:People educated at King William's College

Category:Alumni of Peterhouse, Cambridge

Category:Academics of the University of Manchester