Greenwood's early concert works had their first performances from the Queen's Hall Orchestra under
Henry Wood in the early 1920s. But he quickly became involved with writing music for the cinema, composing and editing music for silent films from the 1920s onwards. In 1929 he wrote a new score for the part-talkie film
To What Red Hell. From the 1930s until the mid-1950s he worked on around 50 films, from
Man of Aran (1934) to
Grand National Night (1953). His film credits also include scores for documentaries such as
Berth 24 (1950), portraying the life of the Hull docks, and
The Lake District (1954), with narration by
Michael Redgrave. His march
The Eighth Army (from the film
The Nine Men) written with
Eric Coates, was recorded on 78. The concert works, composed in parallel with his work for film and theatre, are now entirely forgotten.
Salute to Gustav Holst was premiered at the
Sir Henry Wood Promenade Concerts in 1936, conducted by the composer. His setting of
Psalm 150 for chorus and orchestra was broadcast in May 1936, conducted by Adrian Boult. On 24 January 1938
Constant Lambert conducted the BBC Orchestra in the first performance and broadcast of Greenwood's
Symphonic Movement. The Piano Quintet, composed around 1940, was performed by the
Aeolian String Quartet and
Kyla Greenbaum on 15 October 1953 at Queen Mary Hall,
Great Russell Street, as part of a chamber concert that also included the String Quartet No 2 (1928) and the Flute Sonata (1943). On 14 September 1956 his Viola Concerto received its world premiere at the Proms, with
Watson Forbes as the soloist, conducted by
John Hollingsworth. The composer's archives, held at
McMaster University, contain documentation (including some manuscripts) of two symphonies, three piano sonatas and two orchestral ballet suites (
The Silver Harlequin, 1917 and
Piccadilly, 1953). ==Later life==