Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 1.djvu/637

Devil Tavern near Temple Bar; a proceeding which gave rise to the joke, attributed to Handel, that 'Toctor Greene had gone to the devil.' In 1730, on the death of Dr. Tudway, Greene was elected Professor of Music in the University of Cambridge, with the degree of Doctor of Music. As his exercise on the occasion he set Pope's Ode on St. Cecilia's Day, altered and abbreviated, and with a new stanza introduced, expressly for the occasion, by the poet himself. This composition was performed at Cambridge at the Commencement on Monday, July 6, 1730. (A duet from it is given by Hawkins in his History, chap. 191.) In 1735, on the death of John Eccles, Dr. Greene was appointed his successor as Master of the King's band of music, in which capacity he produced many odes for the king's birthday and New Year's Day. In 1743 he published his 'Forty Select Anthems,' the work on which his reputation mainly rests. These compositions, it has been remarked, 'place him at the head of the list of English ecclesiastical composers, for they combine the science and vigour of our earlier writers with the melody of the best German and Italian masters who flourished in the first half of the 18th century' (Harmonicon for 1829, p. 72). In 1750 Greene received a considerable accession of fortune by the death of a cousin, a natural son of his uncle, Serjeant Greene, who bequeathed him an estate in Essex worth £700 a year. Being thus raised to affluence he commenced the execution of a long meditated project, the formation and publication in score of a collection of the best English cathedral music. By the year 1755 he bad massed a considerable number of services and anthems, which he had reduced into score and collated, when his failing health led him to bequeath by will his materials to his friend Dr. Boyce, with a request that he would complete the work. [See Boyce.] Dr. Greene died Sept. 1, 1755 [App. p655 "for death read retirement. Greene died Dec. 1 (coffin-plate) or Dec. 3 (Vicar-Choral Book), not Sept. 1. On May 13, 1888, Dr. Greene's body was removed from St. Olave's, Jewry, and re-interred in St. Paul's Cathedral beside that of Dr. Boyce. (See 'Mus. Times,' June 1888.)"], leaving an only daughter, who was married to the Rev. Michael Festing, Rector of Wyke Regis, Dorset, the son of her father's friend the violinist.

In addition to the before-named compositions, Greene produced a Te Deum in D major, with orchestral accompaniments, composed, it is conjectured, for the thanksgiving for the suppression of the Scottish rebellion in 1745; a service in C, composed 1737 (printed in Arnold's 'Cathedral Music'); numerous anthems—some printed and others still in MS.; 'Jephthah,' oratorio, 1737; 'The Force of Truth,' oratorio, 1744; a paraphrase of part of the Song of Deborah and Barak, 1732; Addison's ode, 'The spacious firmament,' 'Florimel; or, Love's Revenge,' dramatic pastoral, 1737; 'The Judgment of Hercules, masque, 1740; 'Phœbe,' pastoral opera, 1748; 'The Chaplet,' a collection of twelve English songs; 'Spenser's Amoretti,' a collection of twenty-five sonnets; two books each containing 'A Cantata and four English songs'; 'Catches and Canons for 3 and 4 voices, with a collection of Songs for 2 and 3 voices'; organ voluntaries, and several sets of harpsichord lessons. It must not be forgotten that Greene was one of the founders of that most valuable institution 'The Society of Musicians.' [Festing, p. 515b.]

[ W. H. H. ]

GREENSLEEVES. An old English ballad and tune mentioned by Shakspeare (Merry Wives, ii. i; v. 5). The ballad—'A new Northerne dittye of the Ladye Greene Sleeves'—was entered in the Stationers' Register Sept. 1580 (22nd of Elizabeth); but the tune is probably as old as the reign of Henry VIII. It was also known as 'The Blacksmith' and 'The Brewer' (Cromwell), and was a great favourite with the Cavaliers. Mr. Chappell (from whom the above is taken, Popular Music, etc., Plate 3, and p. 227–233) gives the tune in its oldest form as follows:—

A modified version is found in the Beggar's Opera, to the words 'Since laws were made for ev'ry degree,' and the tune is still sung to 'Christmas comes but once a year,' and to songs with the burden 'Which nobody can deny.'

[ G. ]

GREETING, Thomas, was a teacher of the flageolet in London in the latter half of the 17th century, when the instrument appears to have been played on by ladies as well as gentlemen, as we gather from Pepys's 'Diary,' which informs us that in 1667 Mrs. Pepys was a pupil of Greeting. He also taught Pepys himself. In 1675 Greeting issued a thin oblong small 8vo. volume entitled 'The Pleasant Companion; or, New Lessons and Instructions for the Flagelet,' consisting of 8 pages of letter-press containing 'Instructions for Playing on the Flagelet,' signed by Greeting, followed by 64 pages of music printed from engraved plates. The music is in a peculiar kind of tableture, dots being placed in the spaces of a stave of 6 lines to indicate which holes of the instrument were to be stopped to produce each note. The duration of each note is shown above the stave in the same manner as in tableture for the lute. The music consists of the popular song and dance-tunes of the day. The work was reprinted in 1680.

[ W. H. H. ]

GREGORIAN MODES are the musical scales as set in order by St. Gregory the Great (a.d. 590).