Vivian Dunn

Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Vivian Dunn KCVO OBE FRSA (24 December 1908 - 3 April 1995) was the Director of Music, Portsmouth Division, Royal Marines from 1931 to 1953 and Principal Director of Music, Royal Marines from 1953 to 1968. He was the first military musician to be knighted.

Early life

Francis Vivian Dunn was born in Jabalpur, India. His father, William James Dunn, was bandmaster of the Second Battalion King's Royal Rifle Corps and later director of music of the Royal Horse Guards. Dunn studied piano with his mother, Beatrice Maud, and choral studies in Winchester. He studied at the Hochschule für Musik Köln in 1923, and two years later attended the Royal Academy of Music. He studied conducting with Henry Wood and composition with Walton O'Donnell. As a violinist, he performed in the Queen's Hall Promenade Orchestra under Wood, and in 1930 was a founding member of the BBC Symphony Orchestra under several conductors.

Career

Dunn was released from his contract with the BBC and on 3 September 1931 commissioned as a lieutenant in the Royal Marines to be director of music for Portsmouth Division of the Corps. His duties included directing the Royal Marines Band on the Royal Yacht. In 1947, he took part in the royal tour of South Africa onboard HMS Vanguard and in a Royal Marines band tour of the United States and Canada in 1949.

His promotion to lieutenant-colonel and principal director of music, Royal Marines, came in 1953. Vivian and the Royal Marines Band then accompanied Queen Elizabeth II and the Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh on the SS Gothic for the post-coronation Commonwealth Tour. Upon completing the tour, the Queen appointed Dunn CVO, and in 1960 OBE.

In 1955, Dunn was asked by Euan Lloyd of Warwick Films to compose the theme music for The Cockleshell Heroes (which was otherwise scored by John Addison). He appears as himself conducting the Royal Marines in the end titles of the 1966 film Thunderbirds Are Go.

Upon retiring from his military career in December 1968, Dunn became a guest conductor with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. He also recorded with the Light Music Society Orchestra. In 1969, he received an EMI Golden Disc for sales of over one million Royal Marines Band records. In the same year he was also elected as an honorary member of the American Bandmasters Association. In 1987 he received the Sudler Medal of the Order of Merit from the John Philip Sousa Foundation. In 1988, after serving as the Senior Warden, Dunn became the first military musician installed as the Master of the Worshipful Company of Musicians.

Compositions

Dunn composed and arranged over 60 pieces of music. Several are marches, many with connections to the Royal Marines. These include The Globe and Laurel (1935, revised 1945), The Captain General (1949), Cockleshell Heroes (1955) and Mountbatten March (1972). He arranged numerous others including The Preobrajensky March attributed to Donajowsky (later to become the official slow march of the Royal Marines) and A Life on the Ocean Wave (the official quick march).

Personal life

Dunn married Margery Halliday in 1938. They had one son (Patrick) and two daughters (Leonie and Rosemary). He died of lung cancer in Haywards Heath, Sussex on 3 April 1995 and is buried at Cemetery Chapel, Great Walstead, East Sussex. Marjery, Lady Dunn, died on 26 June 1998.

Recording

• "The Martial Music of Sir Vivian Dunn". The Band of Her Majesty's Royal Marines Plymouth, Captain J. R. Perkins. Clovelly CL CD10394, recorded 1994.

References

• Oakley, Derek. Fiddler on the March: A Biography of Lieutenant Colonel Sir Vivian Dunn'.' London: Royal Marines Historical Society, 2000.
• Rehrig, William H. The Heritage Encyclopedia of Band Music. Waterville, Ohio: Integrity Press, 1991 and 1996.
• Richards, Jeffrey. Imperialism and Music: Britain 1876-1953. Manchester University Press, 2001.
• Trendell, John. "Obituary: Lt-Col Sir Vivian Dunn", The Independent, 18 April 1995.