I concede that Maurice Greene is off my beaten track. Like many
people I have long-known the anthem ‘Lord, let me know
my end,’ having heard it performed many times ‘in
choirs and places where they sing’. A few other bits and
pieces have crossed my path over the years including a number
‘lessons’ for organ and harpsichord. Yet, for a
composer who is often regarded as being one of Handel’s
‘most naturally gifted contemporaries’ I feel that
we have hardly been introduced. A few words on his life and
achievements may of interest to those who, like me, are a little
rusty on his details.
Maurice Greene was born circa 1695, is believed to have inherited
money, married well and been on terms of intimacy with the great
and good of his day. As a young man he was a chorister at St
Paul’s Cathedral under the great Jeremiah Clark (1674-1707)
and the less well known Charles King (1687-1748). He studied
organ with Richard Brind (d.1718) during which time he was organist
at St Dunstan’s in the West and later St Andrew’s,
Holborn. After Brind’s death Greene became the organist
at St Paul’s. In 1727 he succeeded William Croft as organist
and composer to the Chapel Royal. Three years later, he accepted
a professorship of music at Cambridge University. In 1735 Greene
was appointed Master of the King’s Musick’. One
of his great achievements was the collection of an important
corpus of old English sacred music. Greene was friends with
Handel, although there was later a ‘rift in the lute’
between the two men because of Greene’s friendship with
Handel’s great rival Giovanni Battista Buononcini
(1670-1747) the Italian composer and cellist.
Maurice Greene was a prolific composer who wrote in a number
of genres, including opera, liturgical, instrumental and vocal
music. His organ voluntaries and harpsichord ‘lessons’
are fun to play, although they have been accused of having ‘considerable
vigour if little originality’. One of the Greene’s
most important works was his setting of Alexander Pope’s
Ode for St Cecilia. The poet, who was also a good friend,
is reputed to have emended his text to suit the composer’s
requirements. However, Greene had a propensity to write ‘verse
anthems’ which rely on solo voices rather than chorus
and this is believed to have led to the relatively rare performance
of his liturgical music. Maurice Greene died in London on 1
December 1755.
In 1738, Greene wrote a setting of 25 of Spenser’s Amoretti:
they were selected from a collection of 89 poems. Edmund Spenser
had produced this massive sonnet cycle in the late 16th
century. They were written as a description of the poet’s
courtship with Elizabeth Boyle, who was later to become his
wife. The poetic principle of the sequence was an attempt at
‘immortalizing the name of his bride to be ... by devices
of word play’. He gave the name of Amoretti (Little
Loves) to this cycle. His ‘heroine’ is the ‘sweet
warrior’ (Sonnet 57) which Greene does not set. There
is no doubt that from a literary point of view Spenser has relied
heavily on his contemporaries such as the Italian author Tasso
and the French poet Ronsard. However, the ultimate inspiration
is Petrarch. The sonnet sequence is presented as a biographical
adventure; however, it is fair to say that the true facts of
the courtship have not been allowed to get in the way of literary
convention and the telling of a good tale.
Maurice Greene has largely followed the sequence as written
by Spenser: however the opening number of the song-cycle is
actually the 80 on the collection of sonnets.
Mathew Gardner in his excellent liner-notes sums up the composer’s
achievement: ‘The careful choice of sonnets and the [musical]
reactions to the texts which Greene displays, makes this collection
a treasure …’
Benjamin Hulett sings these songs with an engagement that certainly
adds value to the literary subtlety of the text. The sonnets
could be regarded as a little ‘dense’ to the modern
ear, however he has succeeded in presenting the Elizabethan
words in an attractive and engaging manner. A reviewer quoted
on the singer’s web-page has suggested that Hulett has
‘truly immersed [himself] in the persona of the male suitor’
in his interpretation of the varying moods. No better can be
demanded for a performance of these richly demanding sonnets.
The other two soloists must not be forgotten. Luke Green plays
the important harpsichord accompaniment and Giangiacomo Pinardi
provides the accompaniment on the theorbo. Just in case the
reader has forgotten, this is a large bass lute-like instrument
with a large number of strings (11-17). A solo repertoire does
exist for this instrument, however, it is largely used to accompany
singers.
Maurice Greene’s songs are usually regarded as being ‘less
trivial’ than a number of his contemporaries. Certainly,
these Amoretti display a subtle interpretation of the
literary sensibility that demands our attention. Although Thomas
Arne and Handel may not be too far away in these sonnets, Greene
displays a captivating independent spirit that both moves and
entertains. Finally, Amoretti can be regarded as being
the first English song-cycle. As such, it sets an impressive
benchmark that subsequent composers have often failed to better.
John France
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Benjamin Hulett (tenor)