Variations on the Greenwich Pensioner

Not exactly a household name these days, Thomas Augustine (a.k.a. Timothy) Geary was born in Dublin in 1773 or 1775; multiple accounts exist. What little music survives shows Geary’s skill in arranging and composing simple airs for voice and piano, as well as his attempts at song-based chamber works. His very promising career and life ended tragically when Geary drowned at age 27. Beyond these bare facts—birth, death, and promise—nothing more is known.
The “Greenwich Pensioner” tune was written by Charles Didbin in 1789; Geary’s six variations on that theme were likely composed in the mid 1790s. Dibdin wrote the song for a form of table entertainment he called “The Oddities,” which blends narration and singing performed by one person seated behind a table facing the audience. According to the British Library’s archives, the humorous tone of this song is typical of the genre and may refer ironically to Dibdin’s own aborted voyage to India in 1787. Some of Mozart or Beethoven’s early variation sets may be examined in comparison; one will note Geary’s use of typical variation techniques, all the while maintaining the melodic integrity of Didbin’s tune. There is the initial filling out of the theme’s harmonic implications (Var. 1); the increase to rapid and unremitting 32nd-note action (Var. 2); the triplet variation (Var. 3); the variation in the parallel minor key (Var. 4); a slower, pathos-laden version flush with chromatics (Var. 5); and finally a grand summation (Var. 6).

(c) Jason Stell