Henry Geehl

Henry Ernest Geehl [pronounced 'Gale'] (28 September 188114 January 1961) was an English pianist, conductor, composer and arranger.

Born in London in 1881, Geehl studied piano with Benno Schönberger and R. O. Morgan He toured as a pianist and theatre conductor, and in 1919 joined the Trinity College of Music as a teacher, His students included Pete Moore, Eric Parkin, William Lovelock and Nicholas Temperley. He also became music editor for the Edwin Ashdown and Enoch publishing firm. In later life he lived at Coleshill, near Beaconsfield, Bucks, where he gave private lessons in piano, violin, and composition.

Henry Geehl had an affinity with music written for brass bands. He arranged Gustav Holst's A Moorside Suite He made claims to have scored Edward Elgar's The Severn Suite for brass band from the composer's rough sketches, but Geehl's account of his involvement with Elgar has now been exposed as a self-serving fantasy.

His other works include a symphony, concertos for piano and violin, Lauritz Melchior, Jussi Björling and Mario Lanza, among others. (It has been claimed that "For You Alone" was the only song ever sung in English by Caruso and for Jassy (1947).

An arrangement by Geehl of Johann Strauss II's The Blue Danube was recorded by Richard Tauber and Florence Foster Jenkins. He also arranged Edward Elgar's Idylle, Op. 4, Adieu and Serenade for orchestra; Charles Williams's The Dream of Olwen for three voices; George H. Clutsam's Ma Curly Headed Babby; My Heart and I and other songs from Richard Tauber's Old Chelsea; May Brahe's To a Miniature and I Passed by your Window;

He conducted Oscar Natzka's recording of "O Isis and Osiris" from Mozart's The Magic Flute, and Handel's "The song of Hybrias the Cretan" and "Honour and Arms" (from Samson). Between 1939 and 1946 he conducted the orchestra for more than 90 recordings by Richard Tauber, made at the Abbey Road Studios in London. [Ref: Hansfried Sieben, Richard Tauber Discography, Wiesbaden, 1986]

Henry Geehl was reputed to be a "prickly individual".