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Gordon Green (pianist)

Gordon Green, OBE (1905–1981) was an English pianist and pedagogue. Early on he was appointed Director of the Liverpool School of Music (1935),[1] and subsequently taught at both the Royal Manchester College of Music (now known as Royal Northern College of Music)[2][3] and at the Royal Academy of Music, London. In 1972, Green received an honorary degree (Hon MA) from the University of Liverpool.[4]

Biography[edit]

Education[edit]

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.[5] 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.[6] 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.[7] 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.

Career[edit]

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).[8] 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.[9] 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).[10]

Green the educator[edit]

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.[11] 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.

Notable pupils[edit]

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),[12] Martin Roscoe (b.1952), Stephen Coombs (b.1960), John P. R. Blakely (b. 1947), Peter Bithell,[13] Tessa Uys (b.1948), Martin Jones (b.1940), Richard McMahon, Christian Blackshaw,[14] MBE (b. 1949), Harold James Taylor (1925–2014), John McCabe (1939–2015), Malcolm Lipkin (1932–2017), 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).