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Modernism in Ireland and Its Cultural Context in the Music and Writings Of

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Modernism in Ireland and Its Cultural Context in the Music and Writings Of A.O. 1 7 8 2 . Modernism in Ireland and its cultural context in the music and writings of Frederick May, Brian Boydell and Aloys Fleischmann Philip Graydon Thesis submitted to the National University of Ireland, Maynooth as part-fulfilment for the degree of Master of Arts in Music (Historical Studies) Head of Department: Professor Gerard Gillen Department of Music National University of Ireland, Maynooth Maynooth Co. Kildare Supervisor: Dr Barra Boydell Department of Music National University of Ireland, Maynooth Maynooth Co. Kildare July 1999 CONTENTS PREFACE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION: ‘THE [REAL] LAND WITHOUT MUSIC’ 1 CHAPTER TWO ‘COMPOSITION AND THE FOLK IDIOM’ 17 CHAPTER THREE ‘OUR SIBELIUS MANQUÉ’ 30 CHAPTER FOUR A RENAISSANCE MAN IN THE COURT OF ‘KING deV’ 75 CHAPTER FIVE ‘THE CELT AND THE PROFESSOR’ 129 CHAPTER SIX SOME CONCLUSIONS: FORGING THE UNIVERSAL WITHOUT REPUDIATING THE PARTICULAR 183 BIBLIOGRAPHY ABSTRACT PREFACE Twentieth century Irish art music was until recently terra incognita as regards that other mostly untapped area, musicological research in Ireland. However, lacunae once found, are quickly filled, and activity in and around this subject has risen exponentially compared to past endeavour. Joseph Ryan’s unpublished dissertation, Nationalism and Music in Ireland (1991), with its comprehensive treatment of early- mid-twentieth century Irish art music is a most important contribution which, with Axel Klein’s comprehensive study, Die Musik Irlands im 20. Jahrhundert (1996), and the latter’s role as co-editor (with Gareth Cox) of the forthcoming seventh volume in the excellent Irish Musical Studies series (devoted to twentieth century Irish topics), stands testament to the above observation. Together with Harry White’s anthology of essays, The Keeper’s Recital: Music and Cultural History in Ireland 1770-1970, and To Talent Alone: The Royal Irish Academy of Music 1848-1998, edited by Richard Pine and Charles Acton (both of 1998), these works are long overdue and much needed forums for critical consideration of Irish art music of this century, from the unique vantage point at the dawn of the next. Nevertheless, in musicology, as other matters, there is always room for manoeuvre: Klein’s aforementioned book, as commented on its back-cover, ‘describes ... representative works from various genres and places them in the context of Irish cultural history and European musical development’. This dissertation, admittedly, has much the same aims but with the distinction that it describes representative composers (i.e. the pioneers of its title) and places their backgrounds and careers, both collectively and individually, in a similar context. In doing this, their works are then (as a matter of course) considered likewise, but from the point of view of their determination to ‘express, through the international language of music, an Irish viewpoint’, to paraphrase Boydell below. Their efforts to achieve this amidst blinkered official ignorance and pitiful all-round conditions, in a country that was, ironically, for a long time both enriched and enslaved by its ethnic tradition, is the focus of this current study. In regard to presentation, it should be noted that most twentieth century Irish art music, even that of the present, remains largely unpublished. Therefore most of the musical examples below are taken from their composers’ MSS and apologies are made here for their variable quality. This thesis conforms to the house style of the Department of Music, National University of Ireland, Maynooth. IV ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author wishes to acknowledge the help of the following people and institutions without whose assistance this thesis would not have been possible. My unreserved and sincere thanks go to my supervisor, Dr Barra Boydell, for his inspirational critical guidance and unfailing interest in my endeavour. I wish to thank Professor Gerard Gillen, head of department, for his academic support and words of encouragement during the course of my research. The library staff at NUI Maynooth, particularly Ms Bemie Gardiner of the Inter-Library loans department, deserve special mention for their help in my enquiries and in the acquisition of sources. My praise and gratitude go to the director and staff of The Contemporary Music Centre, Dublin, especially Ms Maria Smyth and Mr Jonathan Grimes, who provided listening facilities and much assistance in the procurement of scores and important biographical information concerning the composers under scrutiny. I wish to particularly thank Dr Brian Boydell, and the late Mr Charles Acton, for according me two vital, informative and fascinating interviews that contributed much to my understanding of the issues in question. Mr Paddy Wright deserves special mention for his generously given assistance with regard to word processing: both his and Miriam's help in the final stages of preparing the text proved invaluable. To my proof-readers, Mr Ian Gray don and Mrs Mary Wright, I extend my gratitude for their time. I dedicate this thesis to my partner, Miriam Wright and our daughter, Caoimhe, for their unfailing support throughout its preparation. The following abbreviations are used in the text: BBCCO British Broadcasting Corporation Concert Orchestra BBCSO British Broadcasting Corporation Symphony Orchestra d died CMC The Contemporary Music Centre, Dublin LPO London Philharmonic Orchestra NCH National Concert Hall RCM Royal College of Music RDS Royal Dublin Society RE Radio Eireann RESO Radio Eireann Symphony Orchestra RI AM Royal Irish Academy of Music RNCM Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester RTE Radio Telefis Eireann RTESO Radio Telefis Eireann Symphony Orchestra TCD Trinity College Dublin UCC University College Cork UCD University College Dublin What is lacking ... in the entire nationalist movement in our music is awareness o f the fact that genuine national character comes from within and must develop and grow out of itself that it cannot be imposed from without, and that, in the last analysis, it is a byproduct, not an aim, o f artistic expression. (Roger Sessions, Reflections on the Music Life in the United States (New York: 1956), 151) 1 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION: ‘THE [REAL] LAND WITHOUT MUSIC ... ’ When Fergal Tobin wrote that ‘Ireland is a very peripheral part of the western world, whose enthusiasms it has not always been in the habit of sharing’,1 he penned as good a précis of the status and concomitant stasis of Irish cultural life for the greater part of the twentieth century as any other commentator. This insular climate was symptomatic of the more separatist elements of the Gaelic (or Celtic) Revival of the 1890s, whose dominant nationalist ideology Ireland inherited in the early years of the Irish Free State. However, a study of the situation after independence, and the atrophied state of music in particular, must be prefixed by a brief consideration of that re-animation of ‘Gaelic’ ideas in the later nineteenth century, and how its more negative aspects came to dominate Irish political and intellectual thought and cultural (non-) practice into the twentieth century. Harry White, in discussing antiquarianism and politics in the later nineteenth century, places this pre-revolutionary cultural mindset into perspective when he writes: The contingent relationship between music and Irish political and cultural history in the nineteenth century was of such intensity that it may be said to have determined the central aesthetic difficulties of music as an emancipated art in Ireland The art tradition collapsed into mediocrity or silence. In its stead, the preoccupation with an identifiably ‘Irish’ music was such that a bifurcated development (music as folklore, music as political propaganda) endured in the Irish mind to the extent that the Celtic Revival of the 1890s for the most part accommodated not music per se, but music as a symbol of renascent Irish culture.2 1 Tobin: The Sixties, 1. 2 White: The Keeper's Recital, 53. 2 It is now something of a truism to state that the growth and stimulation of art music in Ireland was (and to some extent, still is) hampered by two obstacles: one, the lack of an organisational superstructure and two, its historically-perceived position by the majority as the domain of the Anglo-Irish elite. However, it was precisely this latter perception that deemed it wholly irrelevant to the political (and cultural) concerns sparked by romantic nationalism and fanned by twentieth-century independence via revolution. To paraphrase Tobin, the principal strain in Ireland's political history - the nationalist struggle to break free of dominance by Britain - had caused it to regard the outside world with suspicion, because the outside world was usually imported through the medium of the English language.3 Thus a separatist rhetoric, often of a polemical nature, abounded in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Irish writing, epitomised by the tendentious and vitriolic criticism of journalist D. P. Moran4: Ireland will be nothing until she is a nation, and, as a nation is a civilisation, she will never accomplish anything worthy of herself until she falls back on her own language and traditions, 3 Tobin: The Sixties, 1. 4 D. P. (David Patrick) Moran (1871-1936), journalist. Born in Waterford, Moran was educated at Castleknock College, Dublin, before founding The Leader newspaper in 1900, of which he was also editor; in its first decade, this widely-circulated weekly was a prime influence in drawing the public into the national
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