Music in Ireland

MUSIC IN IRELAND MUSIC IN IRELAND A SYMPOSIUM Edited by ALOYS FLEISCHMANN, M.A., B.Mus. Professor of Music, University College. Cork Foreword by SIR ARNOLD BAX CORK UNIVERSITY PRESS OXFORD: B. H. BLACKWELL LTD. 1952 Published by the Cork University Press, University College, Cork. Dublin: Eason & Son, Ltd. Printed in Ireland by Eagle Printing Co., Ltd., South Mall, Cork, Printers to the Cork University Press. Note on the Digital Edition of 2013 Aloys Fleischmann´s Music in Ireland was published by Cork University Press in 1952; it has been out of print for decades. The Fleischmann family discovered by chance that in 2003 the text had been scanned and placed on the internet in the USA. Had our permission been sought, we would have welcomed the electronic publication of the book, though we would have requested that the scan be proof- read beforehand. The pages of the book were not reproduced as images, but scanned using optical character recognition software. This enables the use of search tools within the new text, but its recognition ability is far from perfect and proof-reading would have been essential to eliminate the numerous errors. For this edition we have proof-read and re-formatted the American scan, endeavouring to restore the format of the 1952 Cork University Press edition as far as possible. The original page layout has been retained to facilitate quotation. However, it did not quite work out. the last line of most pages is not full; the sentence appears to break off in the middle; it continues on the next page. For this blemish we apologise. Professor Harry White of University College Dublin has described Fleischmann´s Music in Ireland as constituting the beginning of professional musicology in Ireland. It provides unique and comprehensive insight into the condition of classical music in the country thirty years after independence. The thorough analyses compiled by 40 experts show what progress had been achieved since the founding of the state, but also the immense effort needed in all fields if music were to be brought into the life of the nation. We believe the book could therefore be of interest to researchers of 20 th century Irish cultural history. The publication of this electronic edition in University College Cork’s Corpus of Electronic Texts and on the Fleischmann website hosted by Cork City Libraries marks the twenty-first anniversary of Fleischmann´s death. Ruth Fleischmann, Herford / Germany, 21 July 2013 Editor's Note This book owes its inception to a suggestion made at a Council meeting of the Music Teachers' Association in Cork, and to the interest and willingness of Dr. Alfred O'Rahilly, President of University College, Cork, and Director of the Cork University Press, to sponsor its publication. After the book had been accepted by the Cork University Press, it was discovered that Mr. Max Hinrichsen, the London music publisher and proprietor of Peters Edition, had already announced his intention of publishing a book with the same title, as a companion to his publications A History of Music in Scotland and Music in Wales . Mr. Hinrichsen kindly agreed to waive his original plan and to publish jointly with the C.U.P., but several obstacles intervened, and it was found more practicable for the book to be issued solely as a C.U.P. publication. The purpose of the book is to provide a documentary account of present-day conditions in regard to music in Ireland. Materials for historical studies dealing with music here are scanty, and the task of pin-pointing the present seemed more useful than any incursion into the past. Each aspect of musical activity has been dealt with by a contributor intimately connected with the subject, so that the actual level of conditions stands more clearly revealed than if the one writer were to attempt to cover the entire field. Information is accordingly provided on the one hand for those whose duty or interest it is to raise the standard of music here, and on the other hand for the historian of the future. Some of the articles overlap to a certain extent, but as the book will scarcely be read as a whole it seemed desirable that each article should cover all that pertained to it. Art knows no boundaries, and Northern Ireland has been included in the survey in so far as it has been possible to secure the necessary data. By the provision of lists it is hoped to make the book useful to members of the profession as well as to the trade. Some lacunas, however, have proved inevitable, due to the natural aversion of busy people to reply to letters or to press appeals. Particulars have been brought up to date to June, 1951, though it has not been feasible to ensure final verification in the case of all the lists. Information as to omissions or inaccuracies will be gratefully received by the Editor. The contributors, through whose labours this volume has been produced, must be especially thanked for their admirable patience in the face of unavoidable delays in printing. Acknowledgements are also due to Mr. Max Hinrichsen for valuable advice in the i planning of the book, and to Dr. Kathleen O'Flaherty, Assistant Editor of the C.U.P., for her unfailing courtesy and helpfulness in shepherding the MS through the press. Among those who cooperated unselfishly in various ways may be mentioned Mr. Donal O'Sullivan, Mrs. John J. Horgan, Miss Ursula Murphy of the Department of Education, Mr. A. C. Williams and Major Turner of the Ministry of Education, Belfast, Mr. E. Godfrey Brown and Prof. Ivor Keys, who generously supplied data concerning the organization of music in Northern Ireland, Dr. Havelock Nelson, Mr. Newport B. White, Dr. Liam Gogan, and Miss Eithne O'Sullivan and Miss Annette Rohu, who prepared the Register of Music Teachers. Thanks are due to Mr. Wheeler B. Preston and the Editors of the Encyclopedia Americana for their kind permission to reprint the opening chapter, "Historical Survey," originally published as an article on Music in Ireland in the Encyclopedia Americana . As regards the illustrations, we are indebted to the Broadcasting authorities for providing a photo of the Radio Éireann Symphony Orchestra, to Sir A. D. F. Gascoigne of Lotherton Hall, Aberford, Yorkshire, for permission to reproduce the head of Lord Mornington as a detail from Wheatley's painting of the Irish House of Commons, to Captain John Leslie for permission to reproduce the painting "The Bucks," to Prof. and Mrs. J. F. Larchet for providing photos of Commendatore Esposito and of the R.I.A.M. Orchestra in 1899, to the Very Rev. Dean Wyse Jackson for providing a reproduction of a page from a MS in the Cashel Library, to Mr. Joseph Hanna, Assistant Librarian of T.C.D., for providing a reproduction of a page from the Antiphonary of Armagh, and to Miss Hilda Verlin for providing a photo of John Field's tomb. Finally, our sincere thanks are due to the Senate of the National University of Ireland for a grant-in-aid towards the cost of publication. ii Foreword By SIR ARNOLD BAX Master of the King's Music I like to dally with the fancy that the creative mind in mountainous and hilly countries tends to express itself almost exclusively through the medium of literature, leaving the arts of music and painting to the plains. Certainly during the last hundred years or more there has been a ceaseless and phenomenal outpouring of books of all kinds in Ireland and Norway, both of them small and hilly lands. The casual stroller in Dublin or Oslo, in Cork or in Bergen, might reasonably expect to collide with a poet or dramatist round every street corner, whilst hitherto neither country has – with a few notable exceptions, e.g. Jack Yeats – achieved very much of outstanding merit in the other arts. Norway, of course, is rightly proud of her petit maître Edvard Grieg, incidentally one of the most truly national composers who was ever born (though whether nationalism in art is a desirability can be a matter for non-stop debate). But Grieg is an isolated figure. The Irish for their part can point to C. V. Stanford, Charles Wood, and Hamilton Harty. Unhappily, these three undoubtedly proficient musicians were assiduous and dutiful disciples of the nineteenth century German tradition, even whilst clothing their native melodies in all too conventional dress. They never penetrated to within a thousand miles of the Hidden Ireland. This lack of individuality is the more curious since of all countries in the world Ireland possesses the most varied and beautiful folk music, though even now it cannot be fully appreciated in its strange and startling richness until the great collection of gramophone records enshrined in the Library of the Irish Folklore Commission is made accessible to the general public. Here is folk music in splendid barbaric nudity (much of it coming from Connemara) and despite more decent "arrangements" by Stanford, Harty, Hughes, and others "there's more enterprise in walking naked." This music derives from the heart and core of Ireland. I have known Ireland intimately for forty-five years and love her better than any land "beneath the visiting moon." Indeed since the National University was generous enough to confer an honorary degree upon me in 1947 I feel delightedly that I have become a naturalized Gael! This is sufficient reason that the desire for the country's musical awakening lies very near my heart. iii In my early Dublin days I moved in an almost wholly literary circle.

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