Durham E-Theses A.J. Potter (1918-1980): The career and creative achievement of an Irish composer in social and cultural context Zuk, Patrick How to cite: Zuk, Patrick (2007) A.J. Potter (1918-1980): The career and creative achievement of an Irish composer in social and cultural context, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2911/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 Chapter4 Choral works with orchestra 4.1 Introduction n view of Potter's early training as a chorister, it is perhaps surprising to find that choral music comprises a comparatively small proportion of his output: I one might have expected him to follow up his early Missa Brevis with other substantial choral works of various kinds. The fact that he did not can undoubtedly be explained by the circumstances of Irish musical life at the period: in bleak contrast to Britain, not only were good choirs few and far between, but there was little evidence of interest in choral music throughout the country at large. This state of affairs is confirmed by the various contributors to Aloys Fleischmann's survey of national musical life Music in Ireland, which appeared in 1952. In his essay 'Choral Music in Ireland', Radio Eireann's Director of Music Fachtna 6 h-Annrachain identified as a root cause the lack of any satisfactory system of music instruction in schools and the dearth of adequately trained teachers - factors that militated in a very obvious way against the establishment of a vital choral culture. As a consequence, such choirs as existed tended to be of a rather low standard, composed of members who were generally unable to sight-read and were deficient in basic musicianship. Reading between the lines of 6 h-Annrachain's account, it seems that most of these bodies would have been put to the pins of their collective collars to tackle anything more complex than a simple folk-song arrangement. Nor were they generally minded to explore music of greater substance: 6 h-Annrachain described the members of an average Irish choir as being 'regrettably limited ... in their general outlook', and warned of the 'insurmountable difficulties' that would arise if a conductor attempted to impose music on them which was 'beyond [their] powers of appreciation.'1 No doubt this advice was born of bitter experience. 1 Fachtna 6 h-Annrachain, 'Choral Singing in Ireland', in Aloys Fleischmann (ed.), Music in Ireland (Cork, 1952), 236 285 = 5 JUN 20Ctl Nor was the state of church music a great deal better. The Church of Ireland admittedly managed to maintain choirs and choir schools in the two Dublin cathedrals of Christ Church and St Patrick, but these were the only establishments with sufficient resources to perform daily choral services: in the smaller cathedrals elsewhere in the country services could only be rendered in full fashion on Sundays.2 The development of Catholic Church music had inevitably been disrupted under colonial occupation and the Penal Laws that were in force throughout the eighteenth century. In the later nineteenth century, efforts were made to employ foreign organists and choirmasters (who mostly came from Germany and Belgium) and to introduce choral services in the cathedrals.3 This development reached a climax between 1890 and 1930, but it did not ultimately succeed in transforming circumstances as might have been hoped. Unlike the Church of Ireland, the Catholic Church did not maintain choir schools, nor did it establish a dedicated institution for the training of church musicians. In the absence of these facilities, it was impossible to sustain whatever momentum had been generated and encourage the emergence of native talent. At bottom, there appears to have been little willingness to provide the level of practical and financial support which would have been necessary to sustain a vital culture of church music, and one suspects that there was probably little desire to do so. The Catholic Church in Ireland was notorious for its lack of interest in artistic activity of any kind: as the historian Terence Brown has pointed out, this was hardly surprising in view of the fact that its priests were often the offspring of farmers or shop-keepers, and thus came from backgrounds largely devoid of culture.4 The unimaginative education provided in the seminaries, which was largely concerned with the inculcation of an unquestioning anti-intellectualism and exaggerated sexual prudery, would have done little to broaden their mental horizons. The consequences of this state of affairs can easily be imagined. It is 2 F. C. J. Swanton, 'The Training of the Organist and Choirmaster', in Aloys Fleischmann (ed.), Music in Ireland, 145-53 3 An account of these developments is provided in Mary Regina Deacy, 'Continental Organists and Catholic Church Music in Ireland 1860-1920' (MUtt thesis submitted to the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, 2005). 4 For a discussion of the low levels of general culture amongst the Irish Catholic clergy at this period, see Terence Brown, Ireland: A Social and Cultural History 1922-1985 (London, 1987), 30- 34. 286 notable that the Catholic clergyman who contributed the article on church music to Fleischmann's book largely passes over in silence such performing activity as actually took place at the period, concerning himself instead with outlining 'recent papal legislation on music' and discussing 'certain epochs in the history of musical composition in so far as these affected the art of church music and influenced ecclesiastical legislation'. The author makes only the briefest of references to the current unsatisfactory state of Catholic Church music, but prefers to attribute it to vaguely formulated factors such as 'the profound changes that had come over European music generally between the pre-reformation period and the end of the eighteenth century', rather than the conspicuous failure of the church hierarchy to ameliorate matters.5 In spite of this lack of support and the dearth of opportunities for church musicians to receive an adequate training, a few establishments managed nonetheless to maintain choirs of a good standard into the 1950s and beyond, notably the Pro-Cathedral in Dublin and the Cathedral of St Mary and St Anne in Cork. The choir at the latter, which was directed by Aloys Fleischmann's father, was especially fine and elicited enthusiastic praise from visiting foreign musicians such as Arnold Bax: it broadcast frequently on Radio Eireann and from time to time on the BBC World Service.6 Nonetheless, these ensembles seem to have been exceptional in every respect. All in all, from the composer's point of view the circumstances described here could hardly be regarded as conducive to creativity. The low standard of most of the country's amateur choirs would inevitably have placed severe restrictions on the sort of music that could be written for them. There appears to have been a limited demand for simple part-songs and arrangements of Irish folk music - a repertory to which Potter contributed at least to some extent, along with other contemporary figures such as Eamonn 6 Gallchobhair. (The music published by the state publishing house An Gum consisted largely of such simple, accessible pieces.) There 5 Michael Tracy, 'The Training of the Organist and Choirmaster', in Aloys Fleischmann (ed.), Music in Ireland, 138-9 6 For an account of Aloys Fleischmann senior's work with this choir, see Seamas de Barra, Aloys Fleischmann (Dublin, 2006), 4-8. 287 seem to have been very few opportunities to compose choral music of a more ambitious kind, however. Church choirs, by their very nature, tend to perform a rather conservative repertoire and an examination of the catalogues of Irish composers does not suggest that any of the Irish churches displayed a great deal of enterprise in commissioning new work, in contrast to some of their counterparts in Britain and on the continent. In the wake of Second Vatican Council, it is true that a number of composers, including Se6irse Bodley, Gerard Victory and Potter himself, devised settings of the Catholic liturgy, but these were generally extremely simple in nature, being little more than wholly functional Gebrauchsmusik designed for congregational singing and tailored to the capacities of the most mediocre of parish choirs: one doubts that they can have been rewarding to compose. As far as larger ensembles were concerned, there were a few choral societies in Dublin that gave performances of oratorios and other large-scale works with orchestral accompaniment, but it would appear they did not commission very much new music either.? Their standards of performance were no doubt variable, as with all such amateur bodies, but even at their most proficient, one doubts whether they could have borne comparison with the finest British choirs of the period such as the Huddersfield Choral Society, or been capable of performing the sort of taxing modern repertoire in which a body like Charles Kennedy Scott's Oriana Madrigal Society excelled.