Iris du Pré

Iris Maud Greep was born on 3 June 1914 in Plymouth, Devon (England), the daughter of William Henry Greep, a shipbuilder, and his wife Maud Victoria, née Mitchell. She showed musical ability from an early age and began piano lessons at the age of seven. Despite the family's modest financial circumstances, her mother was determined to provide her daughter with opportunities that she herself had never enjoyed, and Iris soon distinguished herself at local music festivals.
In 1932, at the age of eighteen, Greep received a scholarship to study at the London School of Dalcroze Eurhythmics. The Dalcroze method, combining musical training with rhythm and physical movement, was to have a lasting influence on her later work as a teacher. While still officially a schoolgirl in Plymouth, she travelled to London in 1934 to take the Performers' Licentiate examination (LRAM) at the Royal Academy of Music. There she came to the attention of the pianist and Academy professor Eric Grant. After completing her Dalcroze training, she successfully auditioned for a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music, where she studied from 1934 until 1938, with Eric Grant as her piano professor and Theodore Holland as her professor of composition.
Greep proved successful both as a pianist and as a composer. In 1936 she received the Janet Duff Greet Prize, and in 1937 the Challen and Son Pianoforte Prize as well as the Oliveira Prescott Gift. The latter was an Academy award intended for distinguished composition students. During these years several of her compositions were performed at Academy concerts. The first two movements of her Piano Sonata, Allegro ritmico and Andante cantabile, were played by the composer at a Students' Recital on 27 June 1935. On 29 April 1937 a Chamber Concert of Students' Compositions included her Four Pagan Dances for violin, viola, cello and piano, performed by Frederick Grinke, Max Gilbert, Florence Hooton and Greep herself.


At the same time Greep was developing a career as a concert pianist. A surviving programme documents a solo pianoforte recital at the Grotrian Hall in Wigmore Street, London, on a Tuesday, 22 February 1938. In the summer of that year she travelled to Poland to attend a course given by the distinguished pianist Egon Petri. During this visit she met Derek du Pré, who was travelling in Poland. The meeting eventually led to their marriage.
Greep's visit to Poland also resulted in an activity quite separate from her work as pianist and composer. Derek du Pré's book When Poland Smiled, published in London by Gee & Co. in 1940, contained a chapter on Ukrainian folk music written by Iris Greep. 
The outbreak of the Second World War restricted, but did not end, Greep's activity as a professional pianist. During the first wartime period she also worked on the staff of the evacuated Dalcroze school at Glassenbury in Kent and remained associated with it until her marriage. On 15 April 1940 a British radio listing announced Modern Piano Music: A short recital by Iris Greep, demonstrating that she continued to perform for the BBC during the war.


On 25 July 1940 Iris Greep married Derek du Pré. He worked as an accountant and subsequently became assistant editor and later editor of the professional journal The Accountant. Iris continued to use her maiden name professionally, and both performances and compositions from the years following her marriage are still recorded under the name Iris Greep.
Her activity as a composer was particularly significant during these years. Her Sonata for Viola and Piano, composed in 1940 and dedicated to the violist Winifred Copperwheat, received its first performance at the Royal Academy of Music on 17 June 1941, with David Bellman playing the viola and Greep herself at the piano. The work evidently attracted attention beyond Britain. On 10 February 1942 the American journal Musical America, in a survey of younger British composers, wrote: "[..] and a much younger composer, Ruth Gipps, who was a pupil of Vaughan Williams has already written a great number of promising works in both a picturesque and a lyrical vein. Ruth Gipps is the pride at the moment of the Royal College of Music and her rival seems to be Iris Greep at the Academy, who has met with decided success with her viola sonata and her pieces for viola and clarinet."


During this period Greep was therefore regarded as considerably more than a composer of educational music. Her surviving output from the 1930s and early 1940s includes a cello sonata, piano sonatas and ballades, a substantial chamber work for piano and strings, music for the ballet Cherry Stones, a viola sonata and the orchestral work Stonehenge. Her ballet music was associated with Lydia Kyasht's Russian Ballet de la Jeunesse Anglaise, while excerpts from Cherry Stones were performed by Manuel Frenkel and Cherry Isherwood at the Royal Academy of Music on 25 November 1940. 
Greep also remained active as a pianist after becoming a wife and mother. On 21 April 1944 she appeared in the BBC Home Programme in a broadcast of Polish music. A contemporary Polish newspaper announced her performance of a Mazurka and an Oberek by Karol Rathaus, evidently two movements from his Three Polish Dances, Op. 47. Her daughter Hilary later remembered regularly listening to her mother's broadcasts during the 1940s, including a recital of works by Bach, Schumann and Brahms.
There is also evidence that Greep continued to regard composition as an active part of her professional life in the later war years. In December 1944 Ismena Holland, wife of Greep's former composition teacher Theodore Holland and later godmother of Jacqueline du Pré, wrote to Iris and affectionately asked after “the composer Iris Greep”. In 1945 the Royal Academy of Music further recognised Greep's professional achievements by electing her an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM).

Iris and Derek du Pré's first daughter, Hilary, was born in 1942, followed by Jacqueline in 1945 and their son Piers in 1948. Music occupied a central place in family life. Iris introduced both daughters to music at an early age and applied principles derived from her Dalcroze training. Hilary later became a flautist, while Jacqueline du Pré developed into one of the outstanding cellists of the twentieth century.
Iris du Pré played a particularly important role in Jacqueline's earliest musical development. When Jacqueline became fascinated by the cello at about four years of age, her mother devised short pieces and exercises through which particular musical sounds and technical ideas could be introduced. These were written by hand and supplemented with words and drawings intended to stimulate the child's imagination. Two of Jacqueline's earliest surviving violoncello exercise books are dated March 1950. Material of this kind was later published by J. Curwen & Sons as Songs for My 'Cello and Me. Iris prepared corresponding pedagogical music for other young players as well.
Although she became increasingly occupied with teaching and with the musical education of her family, Iris du Pré continued to work professionally as a pianist and music teacher. Former pupil Fiona Simon later recalled having piano lessons with Greep and described her as a teacher at the Royal Academy of Music. She subsequently taught music in schools and during the later part of her career was associated with Apsley Grammar School at Hemel Hempstead.
Iris du Pré died of cancer on 27 September 1985 at Ashmansworth in Hampshire (England).

Iris du Pré Archive


In my possession is the largest part of the compositional estate of Iris du Pré. That means autograph manuscripts of her own compositions of which nearly all are unpublished so far. In fact only 4 of her compositions were ever published, all of them books for musical beginners: Songs for my 'cello and me; Songs for my violin and me; Hilary's tunes and Miniature suite. But Iris du Pré also composed works for professional musicans, in serious formats and for larger ensembles. My archive contains the following works of her:


  • A sea ballade, for piano (1933)
  • Piano sonata
    The first two movements Allegro ritmico and Andante cantabile were performed by Iris Greep at a Students' Recital at the Royal Academy of Music on 27 June 1935.
  • Sonata for cello and piano (1935)
    An early performance of the work was given in January 1938 at the Society of Women Musicians at 74 Grosvenor Street, London.
  • Excerpts from 'Cherry Stones' for 2 pianos (1939)
    A performance took place on 25 November 1940 at a Students' Concert at the Royal Academy of Music with the performers Manuel Frenkel and Cherry Isherwood.
  • Sonata for viola and piano (1940) - dedicated to Winifred Copperwheat. The manuscripts contain the stamp "Hinrichsen Edition Ltd." and also sticker with "Hinrichsen Edition No. 334a", but I found no published edition.
    The world premiere took place on 17 June 1941 at a Student's Recital at the Royal Academy of Music with David Bellman (viola) and Iris Greep (piano).
  • untitled quartet for violin, viola, cello and piano consisting of the three movements 1. To Pan, 2. To the moon and 3. To the stars. The title page of the manuscript is missing therefore I have no information what the work in total was called.
    On 29 April 1937 a Chamber Concert of Students' Compositions was given at the Royal Academy of Music. This concert included the work "Four Pagan Dances" for piano, violin, viola and cello with the movements 1. Pan, 2. Earth, 3. Moon, 4. Planet. This very much looks like the work in my manuscript either before or after a revision. The performers in this concert were notable: Frederick Grinke (violin), Max Gilbert (viola), Florence Hooton (cello) and Iris Greep (piano)
  • Stonehenge, for orchestra
  • Sea mist, for piano
  • Piano ballade
  • untitled piano composition
  • Cradle song, for flute, contralto and piano (words from Padraic Colum's poem "A Cradle Song")
  • A little sonata, for cello and piano (edited by Alison Dalrymple, the first cello teacher of Jacqueline du Pre after her mother)
  • I saw three ships, for three-part chorus
  • Lullaby for 3 flutes, oboe, clarinet, cello and piano - arrangement of the "Wiegenlied" op.49 No.4 by Johannes Brahms
  • The Reaper's Song for flute, oboe, clarinet, cello and piano - arrangement of the "Schnitterliedchen" op.68 No.18 by Robert Schumann
  • Hymn to life, for voice and piano (words by Helene Williams)
  • The Rain, for voice and piano


In addition to the above mentioned autograph manuscripts I also own printed copies the "Miniature suite for piano" (the personal copy of Hilary du Pre) and "Hilary's tunes" for piano resp. piano duet.