Classical Music | Ensemble Music

Maurice Greene

Overture No. 1 in D Major Play Play

Ensemble

Recorded on 10/20/2008, uploaded on 10/06/2010

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Overture No. 1 in D Major, from Six Overtures in Severn Parts Maurice Greene

Allegro assai, Andante, Vivace

Maurice Greene, along with Alcock, Boyce and Purcell, was one of England's own by birth. The youngest son of well-to-do family of considerable lineage, Greene was likely trained under Jeremiah Clarke at St. Paul's Cathedral. When his voice broke, he was apprenticed to Richard Brind, the organist of St. Paul's since Clarke's death in 1707. While Greene is best known nowadays for his sacred music, he also contributed much to the secular music of London—he befriended Handel for a time, but something had caused a falling out between the two men so that Handel, according to Sir Charles Burney, the music historian, never mentioned his name without some injurious epithet. Greene was instrumental in founding the "Academy of Ancient Music" (not the same group as that of the 20^th and the 21^st centuries, by the way). After a setback which involved Bonocini, Greene set up a group called the Apollo Academy with the help of Boyce, his pupil and of Michael Festing, whose music we also hear this evening. Greene and Festing also helped to set up the Fund for the Support of Decayed Musicians and their Families (later the Royal Society of Musicians). David Schrader