Lily Greenham
is

early life & influences

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Unknown song and conversation with Egon Madsen (01:21)
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Lily Greenham’s recording of Gerhard Rühm’s Gebet (00:49)
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Rena Pfiffer’s recording of a Schubert’s Serenade (03:18)
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Rena Pfiffer’s recording of Mattullath’s Herzen und Blumen (03:11)
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In these recordings we hear the voices and sounds of some of the key figures in Greenham’s early life. Her mother Rena Pfiffer-Lax was a well known opera singer in the 1920s, and the two recordings heard here were made in July 1927 in Brunswick Studios, New York. These recordings were digitised in 2024 for the first time, and come from two 78rpm shellac discs, some of the few recordings made by Rena Pfiffer-Lax. Greenham performed on stage with her mother aged 2 but was on stage before she was born — her mother Rena appeared as Princess Eudoxie in Die Jüdin (The Jewess) by Halévy in September 1923 at the Staatsoper, Vienna, whilst five months pregnant. Following from this, we hear a conversation in Danish between Greenham and her stepfather, the opera singer Egon Madsen. In this personal recording made by Greenham in London in 1975/6, she asks to record Egon singing, and they discuss the results. Finally we hear Greenham performing Gerhard Rühm’s work Gebet, with Rühm’s score and performance notes provided on the wall. Rühm was an important influence on Greenham in her years in Vienna and they remained close friends and correspondents throughout her life.