Irish Studies Review

ISSN: 0967-0882 (Print) 1469-9303 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cisr20

Words for music perhaps? Irishness, criticism and

the art tradition

Patrick Zuk

To cite this article: Patrick Zuk (2004) Words for music perhaps? Irishness, criticism and the art
tradition, Irish Studies Review, 12:1, 11-29, DOI: 10.1080/0967088042000192086

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Published online: 05 Aug 2006.

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Irish Studies Review, Vol. 12, No. 1, 2004

Words for Music Perhaps? Irishness, Criticism

and the Art Tradition

PATRICK ZUK, Cork School of Music

I
The last ten or fifteen years have seen a considerable growth in scholarship on the
tradition of classical music in Ireland. This is a most welcome development, given the
decidedly marginal place that this tradition has tended to occupy in general awareness.
Most Irish people know little or nothing about its history and have, at best, a rather
vague understanding of the factors that might account for its somewhat retarded
development here. It is rather difficult, however, for most members of the public to
remedy this deficiency in their knowledge, even if they wish to do so. At present, there
is not even a basic history of Irish music to which they could refer: the last one to
appear was written as long ago as 1905a gallant but rather unreliable and decidedly
tendentious effort by the scholar and minor composer Grattan Flood (18591928),
who, in his zeal to add lustre to his account, was led to claim implausible Irish
ancestries for a number of prominent English composers such as Dowland, Campion
and Purcell, as well as make some most improbable assertions of Irish precedence in the
invention of musical forms [1]. And since then, only a very small number of books on
Irish music have been published. There are almost no biographies of Irish composers
available, or any extended studies of their work. In many cases, it is virtually impossible
to come by detailed information about even the more important figures, short of
undertaking the necessary research oneself. To make matters worse, their music can
only be consulted for the most part in archives and much of it has never been published
or recorded for commercial release.
The frustrations that this causes will be immediately apparent. Readers curious to
learn about Irish literature can turn to a positively bewildering number of publications,
ranging in nature from popular general introductions all the way to specialised studies
of the most dauntingly esoteric kind. Most of the principal works by Irish writers are
easily available. The major figures have been admirably well served, on the whole, by
biographers and many of the minor figures have been the subject of at least a
monograph or two. Should they wish to find out something about the historical,
cultural and social contexts from which all of this writing emerged they can have
recourse to a variety of excellent literary histories. In most cases, therefore, the only
significant obstacles in the way of gratifying the readers curiosity are those imposed by
the limits of his or her own patience and industry.
This is a state of affairs which the Irish musician can but envy, for the tradition of
discourse about Irish art music is not only meagre but also, for the most part, rather
uninteresting, a few distinguished contributions apart. This places us in a decidedly
ISSN 0967-0882 print/ISSN 1469-9303 online/04/010011-19 2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/0967088042000192086
12 Patrick Zuk

singular position from the point of view of our collective psychology. How are we to
arrive at an understanding of what we are, how are we to form an accurate sense of our
past and of the particular circumstances that have shaped us as Irish musicians, in what
is virtually the complete absence of a tradition of fine historical scholarship and higher
criticism? We also inevitably turn to these disciplines for assistance in understanding
the work of our major creative figures. We ask: in what kinds of circumstances did they
live and work? What influences are visible in their compositions? What do we know
about their attitudes to composing? What is their music like? Is any of it worth
performing?

II
But until recently there has been little in print to assist listeners approaching Irish music
in a spirit of adventurous enquiry and looking for answers to these questions. Not much
of what has been published on Irish music can bear even the faintest comparison in
intellectual substance or quality of writing with the standard achieved by the finest Irish
literary criticism. And apart from scholarly publications there is not a great deal else to
read [2]. A few attempts have been made from time to time to set up periodicals but,
unfortunately, all of them have been fairly short lived. They contained some articles of
interest and value, but whatever debate or discussion they managed to engender
inevitably came to a complete halt until the next periodical that was launched at-
tempted to revive it. Consequently, there have been long periods when we have been
without any forum in which talented writers could publish their work or in which views
could be exchanged. (One hopes that the present avatar, the Journal of Music in Ireland,
which has shown commendable enterprise in publishing very substantial articles on
Irish music, will be assured of better luck than its predecessors.)
As far as journalistic music criticism in Ireland is concerned, most of it has been poor
stuff indeed and of paltry intellectual substance. New works, even substantial ones by
prominent figures, receive a perfunctory notice in the Irish Times, if the composer is
fortunate. In many cases, this is the only critical acknowledgement that the work will
have. And, on the whole, Irish music critics have not shown a great deal of imagination
or exerted themselves to any significant extent in the task of creating a suitable climate
for the sympathetic reception and assimilation of music by Irish composers [3]. For the
time being, therefore, Irish audiences must continue to approach this corpus of work in
what amounts to a critical void, without any sense of the historical, cultural or
biographical context from which it has emerged.
In the case of some Irish composers, the dearth of commentary on their music seems
positively scandalous. For instance, one of our most prominent composers, John
Kinsella (b. 1933), has recently completed his eighth symphony. Now, the composition
of a cycle of eight symphonies is a very substantial creative endeavouras significant an
achievement in musical terms as that of a writer who completes eight novels. One might
have imagined that at some point in recent years, before the premiere of one of these
works, a critic would have published an article of some length and substance, discussing
Kinsellas individual approach to symphonic writing and hazarding a provisional
assessment of the new work. If the critic were enterprising, he or she might even have
written a series of articles on the tradition of symphonic writing in Ireland, which would
enable us to place Kinsellas work in a wider context. Needless to say, nothing like this
has ever happened, or, depressingly, seems likely to happen in the foreseeable future.
We are in urgent need of a body of thoughtful, well-researched and informative
 Words for Music Perhaps? 13

studies on Irish composers and on aspects of Irish musical history because the
contribution of composers like Kinsella to Irish cultural life has simply been overlooked
for far too long. Publications of this nature could do much to recall Irish music from
its current marginalised position and bring it to wider awareness. But the quality of the
writing has to be good. As far as journalistic criticism is concerned, we certainly need
something of greater substance than perfunctory reviews or the rather bland articles on
composers that are occasionally to be found in newspapers and magazines here, which,
even at their best, are usually pretty indistinguishable from routine promotional
features. And as for academic writing, we must insist on a higher standard still. For
until such time as we possess a body of writing on Irish music of a distinguished
intellectual calibre, our awareness of our musical heritage and our sense of ourselves as
Irish musicians will remain as poorly defined as ever.
This is why the recent initiatives in Irish musicology are so welcomeeven if what
has been published so far is sometimes very variable in qualityfor one hopes that it
is precisely from this quarter that some really fine writing on Irish music will emerge
when a tradition of scholarship at a high level has had time to consolidate. There is any
amount of interesting work awaiting suitably equipped and enterprising scholars. Some
of the prominent figures in Irish music were remarkable people and the circumstances
in which they happened to find themselves were decidedly out of the ordinary too. And
inevitably, a study of the careers of these musicians will raise questions of interest to the
social and cultural historian. There is certainly no shortage of issues to occasion
constructive debate and exchange of ideas, even given our present state of knowledge.

III
And what is our state of knowledge regarding the historical circumstances themselves?
A few scattered articles apart, very little work has been done on music in Ireland before
the late seventeenth century. (Research on this period is hampered to a frustrating
extent because records seem to be very sparse.) It seems clear that, apart from whatever
music had been cultivated by the Church, it was left to the English settlers to introduce
European art music in its more modern forms to Ireland. From 1600 or so onwards,
documentation becomes considerably more abundant and a few fairly detailed studies
of musical activity from this time onwards up to the early decades of the nineteenth
century have been attempted. A very considerable amount of detailed research remains
to be done, but we can discern the main outlines of subsequent developments with
reasonable clarity. The picture that emerges is of considerable interest.
Naturally, whatever modest musical activity there was to begin with took place for
the most part in Dublin. After the Reformation, a number of fine English musicians
such as John Farmer (b. ?1570, fl. 15911601) and Thomas Bateson (? 15701630),
both of whom were composers of considerable repute, came here to work as organists
and choirmasters. When they arrived, Dublin was a modestly sized town. In the later
course of the seventeenth century, Dublin expanded very rapidly and musical activity
appears to have grown in proportion. Under the Georges, Dublin underwent a meta-
morphosis from which it emerged as an elegant capital city with a vibrant social and
cultural life. A study of musical activity in this period is thus of absorbing interest for
what it reveals about contemporary fashions in what was then the second most
populous city in the English-speaking world.
From the end of the seventeenth century, musicians were employed in increasing
numbers in official capacities, and a state orchestra was formed, based in Dublin
14 Patrick Zuk

Castle. Many of these musicians would also have participated in public concert
performances and given private lessons in order to augment their incomes. Concerts
and theatre found appreciative patrons amongst the beau monde who surrounded the
vice-regal court. Italian opera became popular, as did ballad operas in the English
manner, some of which incorporated Irish folk tunes. Dublin featured increasingly on
the itineraries of distinguished visiting musicians, Handel amongst them. A surprising
number of music publishers were to be found in Dublinit has been estimated that as
many as thirty-five firms operated by 1730some of whom were quick to take
advantage of the absence of copyright laws in Ireland and issued pirated editions of
music first published in London, a practice which proved very profitable.
With such a level of activity, circumstances were propitious for the rise of a native
school of composers, and several figures of talent duly emerged. None of them was a
master of the first rank, but all wrote music that can bear favourable comparison with
the productions of contemporary minor masters elsewhere. A few made reputations
outside Ireland. The brilliant but unstable Thomas Roseingrave (16881766) and the
Cork composer Philip Cogan (17481833) were both very highly regarded as keyboard
virtuosi in their day and composed interesting works for their instrument. Michael
Kelly (17621826), a singer who had an extensive career outside of Ireland and whose
talents earned him the admiration and friendship of Mozart, came to prominence also
as a composer of vocal music. There were others, such as the first Earl of Mornington,
Garrett Colley Wellesley (173581), Timothy Geary (17751801) and Thomas Cooke
(17821848), who also wrote music of some distinction but whose reputations did not
really penetrate outside Ireland.
On consideration, it seems entirely reasonable to concur with Aloys Fleischmanns
opinion that a further century of similar productivity in composition, of similar
patronage, printing, publishing and instrument-making might have led to Dublins
becoming a notable centre of music even by European standards [4]. Unfortunately,
this was not to be. The political unrest of the late eighteenth century called forth a
series of repressive measures on the part of the British government, which culminated
in the passing of the Act of Union in 1800 and the abolition of the Irish parliament.
Overnight, the status Dublin had enjoyed as a capital city was drastically reduced and,
little by little, many of the aristocracy and moneyed gentry abandoned the city. A great
deal of work remains to be done before we could venture a confident assessment of the
extent to which these political and social upheavals affected cultural life, but it seems
fairly clear that the inevitable reduction in patronage resulted in considerable disrup-
tion. The consequences of this for the subsequent development of classical music in
Ireland were undoubtedly of great moment.

IV
Much recent writing on Irish music, particularly that of Harry White and Joseph J.
Ryan, is taken up with trying to understand what happened next. After the Act of
Union it is certainly very difficult not to form the impression that Irish musical life
entered a rather beleaguered stage of its development. White and Ryan have sought to
account for this in their various writings, offering a variety of explanations that are often
broadly similar and, frequently, more or less identical. Their depiction of musical life
since the Act of Union is rather grim. In their view, Irish musical life for the last two
hundred years or so has been so undistinguished and stagnant that such activity as there
has been might as well not have taken place. Most of our composers have been
 Words for Music Perhaps? 15

nonentities. In effect, there has been no tradition of classical music in Ireland to speak
of, and the history of Irish music should be regarded as a chronicle of unmitigated
disaster and of artistic failure. This state of affairs can largely be blamed on the rise of
Irish nationalism, which, they claim, caused politics to impinge on cultural life to a
disastrous extent and dealt a deathblow to our tradition of classical music in the
process.
This is such an overwhelmingly negative appraisal that it cannot but give pause for
thought. If, as I have emphasised earlier, we are dependent on scholarship and higher
criticism to arrive at a realistic sense of our own musical past and of the achievements
of Irish musicians, then writers like White and Ryan bear a considerable burden of
responsibility. The implications of their views are therefore very serious indeed and it
is vital that they should not meet with an easy acceptance, but should rather be
subjected to the most careful critical scrutiny to arrive at a dispassionate estimation of
their persuasiveness and validity.
In the context of the comparative dearth of scholarship on Irish music, it is a matter
of keen regret that ones reactions to these writings should be so ambivalent. This is
particularly so in the case of Harry White; for White, who is the present incumbent of
the chair of music at University College, Dublin, has probably done more than anyone
else in recent times to instil research on Irish music with a fresh sense of enterprise and
vitality. The work of both writers, however, is, in my opinion, deeply flawed and
advances highly questionable interpretations of musical life after 1800. It is to a
consideration of these flaws that we must now turn.

V
White and Ryan portray conditions in Ireland between 1800 and 1930 in a very gloomy
light indeed. They point to a dearth of infrastructures and performing groups, the lack
of opportunities for a musical education and a paucity of significant native composi-
tional talent. They start from the assumption that these circumstances were exception-
ally bad by European standards and then seek to find causative explanations. So little
detailed research has been done on musical life in Ireland during this period that almost
every issue we explore is bound to prove contentious, but I have wondered, on close
examination of their writings, to what extent White and Ryan are justified in their
assessments. It seems to me that one of the most fundamental flaws in their work stems
precisely from the assumption that conditions in Ireland were bad to an extent that was
unparalleled elsewhere. This results in some decidedly distorted interpretations. It is
important to point out that similar conditions also prevailed at the period in other
countries and that Irish musicians were certainly not alone in experiencing frustrating
circumstances.
The comparative stagnation of Irish musical life during the nineteenth century can
undoubtedly be explained largely in simple socio-economic terms. The plain fact is that
classical music has always cost moneya lot of money, at that. Engaging the services
of good singers to put on operas or maintaining symphony orchestras has invariably
been an expensive business, as has the construction of theatres and concert halls, even
in periods when labour was to be had much more cheaply than it is now. Countries
such as Italy, Germany and Austria enjoyed an active musical life largely on account of
a tradition of extensive patronage from the Church and the nobility that lasted well into
the nineteenth century. In Germany, for example, almost every kingdom, principality or
duchy of any size had an opera house with its own orchestra, many of them privately
16 Patrick Zuk

maintained by the nobility. The Grand-Duke Carl Alexander of Sachsen-Weimar was

in a position to place the musical resources of his realm at the personal disposal of Liszt,
and Wagner enjoyed the extraordinarily generous support of King Ludwig of Bavaria.
Composers elsewhere were not so fortunate.
Musical life in Ireland was necessarily much more restricted. There is no reason,
though, to assume as a matter of course that what went on was very poor in comparison
with elsewhere. Even in countries with a well-established musical tradition, the quality
of musical activity could vary enormously from city to city and from period to period:
much depended on the attitudes of those in power and whether or not they were
disposed to spend money on artistic ventures. Even when we read of a musician of
superb gifts like Liszt mounting operas by Wagner in Weimar, we must bear in mind
that he had to put them on with such manifestly inadequate forces that the perfor-
mances must have been fairly dismal.
Practical problems placed obstacles in the way of achieving a high artistic standard
everywhere. Apart from the frustrations caused by factors such as the poor quality and
insufficient quantity of personnel employed in orchestras, professional attitudes of the
time were not necessarily conducive to fine music making either. For instance, it took
considerable time before orchestral players began to accept as a matter of course that
disciplined rehearsal and preparation were necessary to secure good performancesa
change that came about slowly in the second half of the nineteenth century, largely
through the efforts of figures like Liszt, Wagner and von Bulow. There were of course
some superb ensemblessuch as that of the Paris Opera. But, as we know from reading
letters and diaries of prominent musicians of the period, there were also pretty dreadful
ones. And even in places like the Paris Opera, sheer incompetence was to be encoun-
tered. It is frankly incredible to think that the premiere of Wagners opera Tannhauser
there was entrusted to a staff conductor who, because he was incapable of reading a full
score, struggled to hold the ensemble together in this complex work while beating time
from the first violin part. And this was as late as 1861, in what was regarded as one of
the great opera houses of Europe!
We obviously cannot really tell at this remove what much of the activity that went on
at the same time in Ireland was like, but these considerations assist considerably in
providing a necessary perspective. It is also worth bearing in mind that other European
countries also experienced artistic fallow periods, as well as suffering the effects of
adverse political and economic circumstances in ways that are strictly comparable to
what occurred in Ireland. The musical life of Sweden, for example, entered a decline
after the assassination of Gustav III in 1792 from which it took several decades to
recover. A remarkable number of fine composers emerged from Portugal during the
Renaissance and Baroque periods, but few talents of a comparable magnitude appeared
during the nineteenth century. In Finland, a tradition of classical music began to thrive
to a significant extent only from the 1860s onwards. We really cannot say, then, that
circumstances in Ireland were exceptional.
When we consider the poor state of musical infrastructures and music education in
this country, we have to remember that opportunities to receive an advanced musical
training were more or less non-existent in Hungary until Liszt and Erkel founded the
National Hungarian Royal Academy of Music in 1875. As a consequence, most
talented Hungarian musicians, like their Irish counterparts, had little choice but to go
abroad to study and to find work. (This situation prevailed elsewhere too, of course,
such as in Finland.) It is interesting to note that the Royal Irish Academy of Music in
Dublin was founded twenty-seven years before this date, in 1848, and the Cork School
 Words for Music Perhaps? 17

of Music a mere three years afterwards, in 1878. These facts, once again, serve to
redress any imbalances in perspective. And if in a European context the Hungarian
academy was infinitely more prominent as an institution, this is hardly surprising. After
all, it enjoyed the personal practical support of Liszt himself, who used to spend several
months of every year in Budapest giving advanced masterclasses from 1875 until his
death. Not every institution can boast of having on their books someone who was not
only regarded in his lifetime as a pianist of unique and incomparable gifts, but who was
also the most sought after piano teacher in the world.
Ireland was undoubtedly a musical backwater during the period. But, then, so was
the country that had colonised it: the unremarkable quality of English composition and
the low general level of accomplishment of English musicians throughout most of the
nineteenth century had earned the country the soubriquet das Land ohne Musik [the
land without music] from the Germans. Furthermore, Ireland was beset by a host of
very grave social problems during this time, which were exacerbated further by
overpopulation, extremes of poverty, famine, emigration and the political unrest engen-
dered by the internecine tensions that inevitably arose between the conquerors and the
colonised. No one has yet attempted to assess the extent to which these difficulties had
an effect on musical life, but they surely cannot have been propitious for its develop-
ment. On the whole, one cannot help feeling surprised that cultural activity was
maintained to the extent that it was.
If comparisons must be made between the quality of musical life in Dublin, the
largest Irish city, and that in other centres, it should be with smaller provincial cities in
England, if it is to be at all fair. I would suggest that Dublin does not emerge
unfavourably from comparisons of this nature and that the conditions that prevailed
there appear to be fairly typical. Dublin musical life could not offer the quality and
variety of, say, Paris, but then neither could most other European cities. It is important
to emphasise this fact, because what went on in Paris was exceptional by European
standards and even centres like Berlin appeared provincial by comparison. As far as the
general quality of the concert and operatic fare on offer in nineteenth-century Ireland
is concerned, there is no reason whatsoever to believe that it was uniformly dreadful, as
White seems to suggest: the standard of musical activity probably oscillated between
mediocrity and respectability, with occasional events of a particularly high quality,
much as elsewhere.

VI
On the whole, therefore, I am of the opinion that White and Ryans negative portrait
of Irish musical life at the period is quite misleading in its extremity, largely on account
of their failure to view it in a larger European context in which it does not appear quite
so impoverished. But, if their account of conditions in Ireland seems over-dramatised
and unnecessarily bleak, then the reasons they adduce to account for this state of affairs
necessarily become suspect in their turn. I have criticised this aspect of their writings on
Irish music at considerable length elsewhere [5], so I shall not rehearse my strictures in
detail again here, except to provide the briefest indication of my principal reservations,
in order to highlight what are, in my opinion, the serious inadequacies of much recent
writing about Irish music during this period.
In the first place, some of this work is simply too ambitious in its aims, given the
current state of our knowledge. Very little detailed research of any kind has been carried
out and we have no real idea of the possible extent of such primary sources as might
18 Patrick Zuk

exist. We know next to nothing about the careers of some of the most prominent Irish
musicians working in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and for information
about these figures we have little to go on other than perfunctory entries in old
biographical or musical dictionaries. We do not know if they left letters, diaries or other
records. We know little for certain about their views on musical matters or on other
interesting subjects, such as the state of education in Ireland or the activities of their
contemporaries. In the case of those of them who composed, we are even unsure of the
full extent of what they might have written.
This is certainly not a very secure basis on which to attempt a study of the scope of
Harry Whites book The Keepers Recital: Music and Cultural History in Ireland 1770
1970, in which White attempts to present an overview of the position occupied by
music in Irish cultural and intellectual life since the late eighteenth century. One should
not underestimate the difficulties inherent in venturing a broad portrait of this nature
(which is the first of its kind), for White has undoubtedly made a bold attempt to stake
out what is virtually unknown territory. Nonetheless, it is difficult not to arrive at the
conclusion that the attempt was premature. White has too little information at his
disposal to build up even a relatively superficial portrait of musical life during the
period, let alone attempt an assessment of the extent to which politics encroached on
musical life, or any of the other complex issues that he raises. The paucity of references
in the text is often glaringly apparent, and a glance at his endnotes and bibliography
reveals the absence of adequate source materials.
These remarks apply with equal force to Whites other writings on Irish music, as
well as the work of Joseph Ryan. But unfortunately ones reservations do not end here.
Given the fragmentary and uncertain nature of our knowledge, one might have
imagined that any scholar would exercise circumspection and caution in drawing
conclusions from the meagre store of facts at our disposal about this period. This
consideration does not prevent White and Ryan from advancing grand explanatory
theories to account for two hundred years of supposed artistic failure. These theories
rest on two core assumptions which colour their views to a decisive extent: that Irish
nationalism has been invariably a force for ill; and that it is largely to blame for the
sterility of Irish musical life. In their attempts to make these theories seem plausible,
both writers are led to perpetrate curious distortions of perspective and emphasis.
These distortions are of two principal kinds. The first arises through simple omission:
failure to mention crucial facts. For example, in The Keepers Recital, most of the
significant musical activity that actually took place in Ireland over the last two hundred
years is simply passed over for mention altogether. Whites account of composition in
the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is completely perfunctory and, bewilder-
ingly, the work of several significant Irish composers working in the twentieth century
is not discussed in the main text at all and is relegated to a brief mention in an endnote.
Neither does White tell us anything much about the activities of significant Irish
performers, scholars or teachers. One would have imagined that a description of these
figures and their activities would not have been out of place in a work described by its
author as a musical and cultural history. As a result, the unwary reader comes away
with the distinct impression that nothing of any significance, musically speaking,
occurred at allwhich is precisely Whites view, it seems. This is completely mislead-
ing. It seems strangely ironic and incongruous that White, while ostensibly deploring
the neglect of music in Irish cultural life, can proceed to write a book in which he
perpetuates its marginalisation by conveying the unmistakable impression that this
neglect has been wholly deserved.
 Words for Music Perhaps? 19

The second variety of distortion arises from what appears to be a number of

preconceived notions and prejudices on the part of both writers. They adopt an attitude
to Irish nationalism, for example, which can only be described as antipathetic in the
extreme. There is no attempt whatsoever to enter into a sympathetic consideration of
the phenomenon and one suspects that, together with Gaelic culture, it is associated
firmly in their minds with the most extreme manifestations of ignorant philistinism,
insularity, wilful backwardness and resistance to modernity. Both writers suggest
unambiguously that our blighted musical life can largely be blamed on its deleterious
influence. We are asked to believe that most nationalists were either hostile to classical
music altogether, seeing it as an alien colonial imposition, or else were indifferent to the
cultivation of music for purely artistic ends and were solely interested in exploiting
whatever propaganda value it might have in the struggle to project a wholly separate
Gaelic culture, to which appeal could be made in justifying nationalist claims for an
increased measure of Irish political autonomy.
Crucially, neither writer offers any persuasive proof to substantiate these dramatic
claims. I do not doubt that some extreme nationalists may well have been hostile
towards classical music, but there is no reason to believe that people like this were
necessarily in a majority. There is considerable evidence, in fact, to suggest that
attitudes on this question were far more complex than either of them would allow. The
Cork writer Daniel Corkery is often portrayednot altogether fairlyas an example of
a narrow-minded nationalist who was led to advocate a Gaelic cultural separatism of
the most stringent and uncompromising kind. Yet he was also an avid music lover (who
introduced both Frank OConnor and Sean OFaolain to classical music through his
collection of gramophone records) and a close acquaintance of the English composer
Arnold Bax [6]. His contemporary, the redoubtable Geraldine Neeson, a concert
pianist, broadcaster and critic who was a prominent figure in Cork life, was also of
staunch nationalist sympathies. And Neesons engagement with nationalism was not
merely of an abstract or intellectual kind: in her posthumously published autobiography
she describes her intimate practical involvement with Cumann na mBan during the
Anglo-Irish war, even to the extent of helping smuggle moneystuffed into her
corsetover to England to assist the Volunteers [7]. To put matters mildly, she seems
not to have perceived any incompatibility between the two spheres of activity. More-
over, her husband, Sean Neeson, was lecturer in Irish Music at University College,
Cork.
The antipathy of both writers to Gaelic culture is clearly in evidence from their
discussions of the employment of folk music by Irish composers. During this period,
composers everywhere turned to the folk music of their native countries for fresh
sources of inspiration and imaginative stimulus. With any number of eminently respect-
able precedents, it was thus natural and inevitable that Irish composers would follow
suit. The results of this activity took a variety of forms. An abundance of arrangements
of Irish folk music were written, some of them very straightforward, others far more
elaborate. On a higher level of creative activity, some composers attempted to evolve
styles deriving from this music and drew on Irish historical or mythological subject
matter as a basis for their productions.
White and Ryan place the most extraordinarily perverse interpretations on these
initiatives. Ryan claims that Irish music is inherently unsuitable as a basis for musical
composition and that attempts to use it for this purpose were misguided and bound to
fail. Why this should be true of Irish folk music but not that of other countries is never
adequately explained, however [8]. He also suggests, but on the basis of very little
20 Patrick Zuk

evidence, that an interest in Irish folk music was frequently indicative of an arrogant
and complacent cultural chauvinism, which, in his view, led Irish musicians to ignore
or undervalue contemporary musical developments on the Continent to such an extent
that artistic stagnation was the inevitable result [9]. Ryan goes so far as to draw an
explicit parallel between the allegedly negative effects of nationalism on the develop-
ment of Irish music and the effects of Nazism on German music [10]. He has also
committed himself in print to the view that most of the entire corpus of Irish music
composed in the last two hundred years is utterly worthless as a direct consequence of
Irish nationalisma rather curious statement, one would have thought, coming from
the current Chairman of the Contemporary Music Centre, a state-funded body set up
to assist in the promotion of music by Irish composers [11].
In a recent article, White has expressed himself in derisory terms about what he
describes without any qualification as the dreary tradition of folk music arrangements
by Irish composers, as if this very sizeable corpus of musicwhich, again, has received
very little attention from scholars, much of it being quite unknownwere, in its
entirety, without any merit whatsoever [12]. This is simply not true. It is undeniable
that many of the arrangements of Irish folk music are little more than hackwork.
However, there is also a body of work of a much higher order, which includes
contributions from some of the finest Irish composers and is much more technically
skilful and imaginative. And if Irish composers penned so many arrangements, it was
not because they were unable to think of anything else to do, as Joseph Ryan infers [13].
Quite simply, making arrangements of this kind was one of the very few ways
composers had of making a living. It is important to remember that these arrangements
are representative of a kind of light music which has now disappeared altogether, but
which was once published in abundance and formed the bulk of popular concert fare
and, later, music broadcast on the radio. In his capacity as arranger, a composer such
as A. J. Potter can best be understood as the Irish counterpart of English musicians like
Eric Coates. There was also a very considerable quantity of arrangements of folk songs
for use in schools or by amateur choirs, some of which are very competent and which
were doubtless very useful.

VII
On the whole, these writings are as tendentious in their way as Grattan Floods
historyin fact, a work like The Keepers Recital reads like an inversion of Floods to the
extent that one wonders if it has been conceived in conscious opposition to it. To
compare the tone and general tenor of these two histories is to learn something about
the extent of the chasm in experience and sensibility that separates us from the
generation that came to intellectual awareness in the Ireland of the 1890s. Floods
narrative is instinct with a warm enthusiasm for Gaelic culture, whereas White scarcely
troubles to conceal his distaste. Flood, writing from the perspectives of a fervent but
rather sentimental nationalism, regards our Gaelic heritage with evident pride and turns
to it in the hope of cultural renewal; White, writing from the knowing perspectives of
a somewhat simplistic revisionism, holds those who championed Gaelic culture respon-
sible for the subsequent emergence of a narrow chauvinism and ignorant philistinism,
which he evidently believes has blighted musical life in modern Ireland right down to
the present. Floods perspective leads him to make spurious claims for the excellence
of the musical tradition in our land of song [14], which he seeks to enhance by means
of dubious additions to the national pantheon of composers; Whites leads him to
 Words for Music Perhaps? 21

present an exaggeratedly negative account by omitting to mention any significant

achievements by Irish musicians at all, thus leaving the reader with the unmistakable
impression that Ireland was, in musical terms, a desert. Ironically, therefore, both
accounts are equally false and misleading, if for strictly antithetical reasons.

VIII
It is only when detailed research is carried out on the period 18001930, and more
primary sources are unearthed, that we will be able to form a more accurate picture of
what musical life might have been like and offer correctives to White and Ryan. Even
in the cases of the few important Irish composers who made substantial reputations
abroad during this time, there have been surprising lacunae in scholarship. Michael
Balfe (180870) was internationally renowned as a composer of opera: his most famous
work, The Bohemian Girl, created a furore on its first performance and went from
triumph to triumph in all the principal capitals of Europe and both Americas. Yet, at
the time of writing, there is no reliable edition available of the full score of this work,
which, while no masterpiece, is of considerable historical importance in the annals of
opera. And Balfe, like other important composers such as Stanford, whose careers fall
within this period, has not been the subject of a modern biography until very recently
[15]. And in the case of most of the other Irish musicians of this period, we know next
to nothing about them.
One of the most interesting areas of research, of course, will be music during the
period of the Gaelic Revival in the decades before the First World War. Apart from the
fact that are a number of intriguing figures active at this time whose careers are urgently
awaiting investigation, such as Annie Patterson (18681934), Robert ODwyer (?
18621949), OBrien Butler (? 18621915) and Geoffrey Molyneux Palmer (1882
1957) [16], one hopes that research in this area will yield valuable data about the
contentious issue of nationalism and its effects on cultural life. It is, however, vital that
scholars will approach this material in a spirit of open-minded and dispassionate
enquiry.
I certainly do not wish to suggest that our engagement with the musical life of this
era should be uncritical: I simply wish to suggest that it must be fair. The historian need
not necessarily agree with or approve of all the opinions he/she finds expressed by Irish
musicians of the time, but it is pointless for him to belittle them or vilify them simply
because their ideas are not in accordance with his. In this way, we learn nothing and
there is also a very real danger of perpetrating what are at worst blatant distortions or
at best half-truths. But how much richer will his portrait be if, having made an honest
effort at assimilating the sources available to him, the historian tries to establish a
connection of empathic understanding with the figures he encounters, attempting to
view them in the context of their age, look at matters from their points of vantage and
enter into a consideration of their aspirations and their anxieties with sympathy. In this
way, the act of imaginative reconstruction has a resonance and depth of human interest
that often far transcends the specific circumstances of which the historian treats. I
personally would suggest that the study of the manner in which Irish musicians
responded to the resurgence of cultural and political nationalism has a psychological
dimension of precisely this universality.
There can be no doubt whatsoever about the genuineness of the enthusiasm and the
sense of mounting excitement with which a growing number of Irish people from the
1890s onwards began to rediscover something of their Gaelic heritage that had largely
22 Patrick Zuk

been abandoned and then hastily forgotten after the Famine, and which had finally
ended up as an object worthy only of cheap derision in the popular mind. The
rediscovery of Gaelic culture was thus not only a rediscovery of Irish self-worth; it was
also experienced by many as a spiritual awakening to values of a higher and nobler
order than those of contemporary society, which were widely perceived as shoddy and
debased. We find Yeats, Douglas Hyde and Edward Martyn, amongst others, vocifer-
ous in their condemnation and rejection of what they describe as materialisma word
we encounter again and again in contemporary writings, and which, in the contexts of
its use, tells us much about this generations perceptions of the disheartening circum-
stances they felt impelled to confront in the hope of changing them for the better. Many
of them felt acute dissatisfaction with the Ireland in which they lived and ardently
hoped that the Gaelic Revival would bring about a cultural renaissance on a grand scale
from which the Irish nation would emerge spiritually transformed and regenerated.
It is vital to grasp the significance of this dimension to the Gaelic Revival if we are
to achieve any adequate understanding of it. Cultural regeneration, political activism,
artistic expression and spiritual engagementall of these things were often inextricably
fused in the minds of the principal protagonists in this remarkable movement. I do not
wish to minimise the very considerable diversity of their individual standpoints on these
mattersfor there were sometimes very marked differences of perspective and empha-
sis indeedbut it is at the same time indisputable that there was a striking measure of
coherence too, especially in regarding Irish nationalism as having a spiritual as well as
a political and cultural dimension. W. B. Yeats and Patrick Pearse may have differed
considerably in their views on politics and religion; but nonetheless, in Yeatss mind, his
rather unorthodox beliefs on spiritual matters were as intimately linked with his Irish
nationalism as, for Pearse, it was bound up with his Catholic faith, and the two
phenomena are undoubtedly related.
Given the dominant perspectives of our own age, it is very difficult for us to place
ourselves back in the minds of figures like these. In our current intellectual climate,
many aspects of the Gaelic Revival, and perhaps this association of politics and spiritual
life most of all, will meet with suspicion, hostility and distaste. It is certainly undeniable
that later manifestations of this association, especially that of Irish nationalism with a
narrow Catholicism, had many unhappy consequences and engendered an oppressive
climate that is deeply repugnant to the liberal mind; and as a consequence, therefore,
it is impossible for us to accept the attitudes of many figures of this generation without
very significant reservations. But, as historians, we must make the attempt to treat them
fairly, even if we find ourselves in deep disagreement with them. And the study of why
these views might have arisen and taken the form they did, not to mention of the
manner in which they came to be professed with such passionate intensity, is of the
most absorbing psychological interest.
Certainly, there can be no doubt of the genuine idealism of this generation in their
attempts to foster an intellectual and cultural life that would re-emerge in splendour,
phoenix-like, from the ashes of our Gaelic past. And even if the spiritual transformation
on a grand scale that some of them awaited with such chiliastic fervour did not come
about in the manner in which they had expected, something of their lofty idealism
undoubtedly survived their subsequent disillusionment and continued to inform and
animate cultural life in the early years of the Free State, musical life included. Perhaps
at this temporal remove it will at last be possible for us to arrive at a richer and more
sympathetic understanding of the events of this remarkable period than the perspectives
that a crude and simplistic revisionism have permitted until recently. And as far as
 Words for Music Perhaps? 23

discussions of music during this period are concerned, we are in urgent need of
commentaries of a far greater sophistication and depth of imaginative engagement.

IX
Our knowledge increases considerably as we move further into the twentieth century,
though here, too, there is a great deal still to be done. As far as creative artists are
concerned, while we know enough about most of the important figures to form an
impression of their comparative significance, in every single case adequate biographical
research has yet to be undertaken and all of their respective outputs still await detailed
assessment. And there are also quite a number of figures about whom we know next to
nothing, such as the composer Ina Boyle (18891967), a prolific composer of orches-
tral, choral and vocal music, who had performances of her work in England in the
1920s, but who seems to have spent most of her later life living in seclusion. In
addition, very little research has been carried out on the general circumstances of Irish
musical life. The current state of our knowledge thus makes it very difficult, if not
impossible, to arrive at a satisfactory overview of the period [17].
We can discern certain broad patterns, however. During the 1930s and 1940s, quite
a number of composers attempted to fashion individual modes of expression which
were based on Irish folk music. Ironically, one of the strongest influences on this school
would have been exerted by contemporary English composers such as Ralph Vaughan
Williams, whose international prestige was enormous during this period, and whose
own idiom was derived to an appreciable extent and in a very self-conscious way from
English folk song. Other composers felt more drawn to write under the influence of
contemporary Continental modernists such as Schoenberg, Stravinsky or Bartok. Irish
music during this period evinces a rich diversity of contrasting styles and some of it is
of considerable distinction.
A number of recent historians, anxious to redress exaggerated views of what is
supposed to have been the paralysing intellectual torpor that prevailed in Ireland until
1970 or so, have rightly pointed out that the cultural and intellectual life of this period
was much more rich than has generally been acknowledged. Certainly, it is very difficult
to justify any charges of intellectual insularity that might be levelled at most of the
important figures in the first generation of composers to live and work in the Free State,
such as Aloys Fleischmann (191092), Frederick May (191185), Brian Boydell
(19172000), A. J. Potter (191880) and Gerard Victory (192195). On the contrary,
one forms the impression of a group of men with active and enquiring minds, all of
them keen to keep abreast of musical activity elsewhere, and all of whom made
significant contributions of a kind that are comparable with the best of contemporary
endeavour in other fields. And if they chose for the most part to remain within fairly
traditional modes of expression in their work, it was certainly not on account of the fact
that they were ignorant of modernist innovations.
A thorough study of the lifes work of Fleischmann and Boydell will be of particular
importance, on account of the extensive influence they exerted on many facets of Irish
musical life [18]. Through the activities of these men, we glimpse something of the
idealistic and selfless commitment to the cultural regeneration of modern Ireland that
animated many figures of the Gaelic Revival and I would suggest that it is as a
continuation of this tradition at its finest that the lifes work of both men should be
understood at least in part, though one should add that neither of them had any
sympathy whatsoever for nationalism in its cruder and exaggerated forms. Both were
24 Patrick Zuk

men of remarkable energies, and between them they did a very great deal to improve
the conditions they had inherited. Both of them threw themselves wholeheartedly into
a bewildering variety of activitiesincluding composing, performing, teaching, writing,
organising and mounting campaigns for a whole variety of important causes, all of
which played no small part in the transformation of these circumstances. In particular,
they made seminal and very significant contributions to musical scholarship and are of
considerable historical importance in their roles as educators.
Both also wrote music of considerable distinction, at least some of which deserves to
occupy a permanent place in our national canon. Their work affords a number of very
interesting contrasts. Boydells idiom is for the most part self-consciously cosmopolitan
in style. Fleischmann, however, was deeply preoccupied with the question of forging a
distinctly Irish mode of expressionsurprisingly so for someone of completely German
extractionand even went so far as to present some of his early work under an Irish
pseudonym. His music, to my mind, represents a truly successful attempt to devise a
sophisticated idiom deriving from Irish folk music. At its best, Fleischmanns work has
rhythmic vitality, a solid structural sense and an excellent control of texture. It also
displays a piquant sense of harmonic and instrumental colour, and its finest, in works
like the stirring and vivid choral and orchestral work Clares Dragoons, is of considerable
dramatic and imaginative power.
In the case of all the composers I have mentioned, it is baffling that their music
should remain more or less unknown, even in Ireland. As far as the wider dissemination
of their work is concerned, the position is equally curious. All of them enjoyed
occasional successful performances outside of Ireland, but for some reason none of
them ever seemed to have been in a position to capitalise further on these successes. In
some cases they received very favourable notices abroad. The distinguished English
critic and composer Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji wrote a very laudatory review of Mays
Songs from Prison [19], for example, while Clares Dragoons was singled out by the
English critic W. R. Anderson as the work that impressed him the most of everything
he heard broadcast during 1952 [20]. These comments provide ample confirmation
that the failure of the best of this music to make more headway, then, clearly has
nothing to do with the quality of the music itself. The answer to this conundrum will
probably be found to lie in the fact that most of this work is unpublished, for it is very
difficult for new music to become more widely known without promotion from an
influential publishing house with sufficient resources to encourage persistent advocacy
from good performers. There was no significant music publisher in Ireland, and larger
publishers in other countries elsewhere probably saw no reason to take on the work of
comparative unknowns. In any case, whatever the reasons, a large part of our present
task is to create a suitable critical context for the reception of these compositions, which
one hopes will assist in bringing them at last to wider attention.
From the 1950s onwards, the number of composers working in Ireland begins to
multiply to such an extent that it would be impossible for me to do the subject any
justice here. Until recently, the reputation of Sean O Riada (193171) has tended to
eclipse that of other figures, certainly as far as the general public is concerned, at any
rate. This has been unfortunate, for many reasons. O Riada, like May, was a figure of
very considerable promise, but one whose potential was seems never to have been
fulfilled. His output is small, and many would feel now that the very high reputation he
enjoyed as a composer was completely disproportionate to his actual achievement,
being based on hearsay, perhaps, rather than an actual acquaintance with his music.
On balance, this assessment seems just. There are a considerable number of other
 Words for Music Perhaps? 25

composers whose careers merit detailed consideration and whose achievement, one
hopes, will now be seen in proper perspective.
In speaking of the research that needs to be undertaken, I shall confine myself merely
to a few general remarks. This period is a particularly interesting one, for several
reasons. In the first place, modern music entered on a particularly chaotic and
experimental phase of its development at this time. For a time, it seemed as if many
more traditional modes of expression would be entirely swept away and, as a result,
many composers everywhere felt a very considerable measure of disorientation and
uncertainty. They responded very differently to these rather difficult circumstances.
Some of them embraced avant-garde idioms enthusiastically; others voiced reservations
about these developments or even rejected them completely with scepticism or incom-
prehension. To complicate the situation further, the climate of critical opinion became
quite fraught, as some of the more prominent members of the Continental avant-garde
expressed themselves in highly derisory terms about composers of a more conservative
cast.
This was no less the case in Ireland than anywhere else. The responses of Irish
composers to this situation and the ways in which they have evolved an individual idiom
have been very diverse indeed and would make a fascinating study in itself. Apart from
learning something of their personalities and of the circumstances in which they found
themselves, we could also learn much about their reactions to questions of tradition,
craft and technique. I have recently carried out a number of interviews with the
composers James Wilson (b. 1922), John Kinsella (b. 1933) and Seoirse Bodley (b.
1934), in which I had an opportunity to raise these issues, as well as with Raymond
Deane (b. 1953), who is of the next generation.
Undoubtedly, there were a number of respects in which all of them had experienced
the drawbacks of living in a small country with underdeveloped infrastructures. It is also
undeniable that the position of the Irish composer has tended to be a somewhat
marginalised one [21]. Nonetheless, the fact that all of them continued to compose
despite these frustrations is an eloquent testimony in itself to the depth of their artistic
commitment. On the whole, one senses that the study of this period will prove deeply
rewarding. The composers, like those of any other historical era, will interest us in so
far as their personalities and their work show a genuine richness of creative and
intellectual response. There is everything to suggest that, in the case of many of them,
this expectation will be amply satisfied.

NOTES
[1] W. H. Grattan Flood, A History of Irish Music (Dublin, 1905). A photolithographic facsimile of the
third edition (1913) was re-issued by Praeger Publishers of New York and Washington with an
introduction by Seoirse Bodley in 1970.
[2] In the space at my disposal here, it is not possible to survey this literature in depth and I shall
confine myself to mentioning some works that I regard as particularly important. There is a small
number of seminal books and articles on Irish music by modern scholars, which stand quite apart
in quality from the rest. Aloys Fleischmann (191092), who was Professor of Music at UCC from
1934 until 1980, made distinguished contributions to scholarship on several aspects of music in
Ireland. As far as classical music in particular is concerned, his most important contribution is a
splendid article on music in Ireland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Music
and Society 18501921, which appeared posthumously in the sixth volume of A New History of
Ireland: Ireland under the Union, II, 18701921 (Oxford University Press, 1996). Brian Boydell
(19172000), who was Professor at Trinity College, Dublin, produced two very fine studies on
music in Dublin in the eighteenth century, A Dublin Musical Calendar 17001760 (Irish Academic
26 Patrick Zuk

Press, 1988) and Rotunda Music in Eighteenth Century Dublin (Irish Academic Press, 1992). He
also contributed a general article on this period to vol. IV of A New History of Ireland: Eighteenth
Century Ireland 16911800 (Oxford University Press, 1986), Music 17001850 Dr Ita Margaret
Hogan wrote a pioneering survey of music in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,
Anglo-Irish Music 17801830 (Cork University Press, 1966), which is very valuable. More recent
work is not of as high an order as these. Apart from the contributions of Harry White and Joseph
J. Ryan, which are discussed in the text, Axel Klein has written a study of Irish music in the
twentieth century, Die Musik Irlands im 20. Jahrhundert (Georg Olms Verlag, 1996). The Irish
Musical Studies series contains a number of articles on Irish music of some value, though the
quality of these can be very variable indeed. Articles of interest will be found in the periodicals
Soundpost and Music Ireland, both now defunct, as well as the Journal of Music in Ireland. A number
of useful pieces, too numerous to mention here, are scattered in other publications.
[3] The only exception worth mentioning is the Dublin critic Charles Acton (191999), who
contributed some articles on Irish composers to Eire-Ireland and other publications. These articles
are rather superficial, however.
[4] From his foreword to Hogans Anglo-Irish Music 17801830, p. ix.
[5] In vol. 2, nos 2 and 3 of the Journal of Music in Ireland (January/February and March/April) I
wrote a two-part review of the collection of essays Musical Constructions of Nationalism (see n. 13
below), in which I discussed the views of White and Ryan at considerable length. I returned to the
subject of their work in another article in vol. 3, no. 5 of the same journal (July/August 2003),
entitled Music and Nationalism: The Debate Continues.
[6] Corkery had a deep admiration for Baxs music and even delivered a radio tribute to the composer
on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday.
[7] See the account in Geraldine Neeson, In My Minds Eye: The Cork I Knew and Loved (Prestige
Books, 2001), p. 83ff.
[8] In his PhD thesis Nationalism and Music in Ireland (Maynooth: National University of Ireland,
1991), Ryan avers that the linear character and small structure of the music left it unsuited [sic]
as the basis for extended composition (p. 455).
[9] See his PhD thesis Nationalism and Music in Ireland, p. 455ff., as well as his articles Assertions
of Distinction: The Modal Debate in Irish Music, in Irish Musical Studies 2; Nationalism and
Irish Music, in Irish Musical Studies 3; and The Tone of Defiance, in Musical Constructions of
Nationalism: Essays on the History and Ideology of European Culture 18001945, ed. Michael Murphy
and Harry White (Cork University Press, 2001).
[10] See his article The Divided Imagination: Music in Ireland after O Riada, in Irish Musical Studies
7, p. 15.
[11] See his comments in the article Nationalism and Irish Music, in Irish Musical Studies 3, p. 111.
Ryan creates the impression that the national broadcasting station set up what he describes as a
generous scheme to commission works from Irish composers, but was poorly rewarded with a
mass of undistinguished arrangements of folk music. This is completely misleading: the scheme
in question was specifically set up to commission arrangements of folk music.
[12] See his article The Tone of Defiance, in Musical Constructions of Nationalism: Essays on the History
and Ideology of European Culture 18001945, ed. Michael Murphy and Harry White (Cork
University Press, 2001), p. 208.
[13] Nationalism and Irish Music, in Irish Musical Studies 3; The Tone of Defiance, in Musical
Constructions of Nationalism.
[14] As Flood describes Ireland in the Preface to his history.
[15] See William Randolph Tyldesley, Michael William Balfe: His Life and His English Operas (Music in
Nineteenth Century Britain) (Aldgate Publishing, 2003). An adequate reassessment of the achieve-
ment of Charles Villiers Stanford was long overdue. Two interesting biographies have recently
appeared: Paul J. Rodmell, The Life and Works of Charles Villiers Stanford (Ashgate, 2002); and
Jeremy Dibble, Charles Villiers Stanford: Man and Musician (Oxford University Press, 2002).
[16] Patterson was a minor composer who wrote operas and other works, including fantasias and
pot-pourris of Irish airs. To judge from the few piano pieces I have looked at, it would seem that
she was a competent musician but had no real creative talent to speak of. However, this
impression could well alter on looking at other work. ODwyer and Butler are of significance as
composers of operas on Irish subjects which were put on with considerable success in Dublin in
1909 and 1913, respectively. Palmer composed thirty-two settings of poems by James Joyce, which
were not discovered and premiered until 1982.
 Words for Music Perhaps? 27

[17] Very little of an extended nature has been written on any twentieth-century Irish composers. Ruth
Fleischmann has edited a volume of reminiscences and essays about her father Professor Aloys
Fleischmann (Aloys Fleischmann (19101992): A Life for Music in Ireland Remembered by Contempo-
raries (Mercier Press, 2000)). In this, there is a long article by Seamas de Barra, The Music of
Aloys Fleischmann: A Survey, which provides an excellent overview of Fleischmanns career and
compositional achievement. It is notable that nothing of any comparable substance seems to have
been attempted for anyone else. Two articles on music by Irish composers of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, by Jeremy Dibble and Axel Klein, appear in a book published to celebrate the
sesquicentenary of the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin. This book, To Talent Alone: The
Royal Irish Academy of Music 18481998 (Gill & Macmillan, 1998), unfortunately continues the
tradition inaugurated by Grattan Flood in its attempts to create an impression that most important
Irish composers were all in some way connected with the Royal Irish Academy of Music, when
in fact many of the figures mentioned had only the most tenuous connections with the institution,
if any. Axel Klein, for example, refers to Aloys Fleischmann as a Fellow of the Academy.
Fleischmann had no connection with the Royal Irish Academy of Music whatsoever. He was,
however, a Fellow of the scholarly body the Royal Irish Academy, which is, of course, a completely
different organisation.
[18] A study, The Life and Music of Brian Boydell, to be published by the Irish Academic Press under
the joint editorship of Gareth Cox, Axel Klein and Michael Taylor, is forthcoming.
[19] This appeared in the New English Weekly on 14 January 1943. Sorabji comments: Here is a
powerful original musical mind, a pregnant and serious thinker, an artist I shall make a point
of hearing more of Mr Mays music as soon as I can. He is very much of an acquisition. This can
be found in a volume of Sorabjis collected reviews produced by the Sorabji Archive (The Reviews
of Kaikhosru Sorabji, April 1992, unpaginated). The reviews are presented in rough chronological
order and this particular one can be found towards the very end.
[20] This was in the context of a special feature in the periodical Music Teacher and Piano Student,
where, along with other distinguished musicians and writers, he singled out those musical events
which constituted his Strongest Musical Impression of 1952. Anderson wrote: Broadcast:
unknown yet to most English people: Aloys Fleischmanns setting for choir, orchestra and
war-pipes of Clares Dragoons, by the Irish patriot-poet Thomas Davis: a real thrill in this.
Anderson also wrote a favourable notice of the work for the Musical Times.
[21] Deane has contributed a forceful essay, The Honour of Non-existenceClassical Composers in
Irish Society, to Irish Musical Studies 3, in which he summarises some of the principal frustrations
experienced by Irish composers.