Ireland, John (1879-1962)

[salymap]

In today's Music Matters there was a review of a new book on the somewhat enigmatic composer.

At £40 with small print, as a review elsewhere comments, I shall certainly not be buying it but wonder if other members have any views on it, or interest in John Ireland.

Ilove a lot of his songs, remember music published by Augener, where I worked and spoke to him on the phone but never met him. One of my senior colleagues was a friend of Ireland, spent many weekends visiting him and Mrs Kirby at the Windmill in Sussex where he lived . Mrs Kirby apparently destroyed a large number of private papers after his death and a detailed biography still seems unavailable.

Doesit matter? His music is certainly not heard enough these days.

[umslopogaas]

I heard the programme and went to check my shelves and found I had quite a lot of Ireland on (LP) disc. He was very well served by Lyrita back in the 1960s and 1970s.

- Lots of solo piano music played by Alan Rowlands (mono only) and a lot more, including some re-recording of Rowlands' repertory, by Eric Parkin (in stereo)

- The piano concerto, by Colin Horsley (mono, on HMV for a change), and Eric Parkin (stereo)

- Lots of songs sung by Alfreda Hodgson, John Mitchinson and Benjamin Luxon, with Alan Rowlands (piano)

- Piano trios with Yfrah Neaman (violin), Julian Lloyd Webber (cello) and Eric Parkin (piano)

- Violin Sonatas with Yfrah Neaman and Eric Parkin

- A dozen pieces for orchestra, including the Legend for piano and orch., with Eric Parkin and the LPO cond. Boult

That's fourteen LPs, thirteen of them on Lyrita (and I make no claim to have everything that Lyrita put out, especially in their early mono-only days), so at one time his music was widely available. It certainly hasnt disappeared, he has three pages of CDs in the 2010 Penguin Guide. But its true that I cant recall hearing much on Radio 3. At the risk of attracting broadsides from the defenders of English music, I wonder if his music just isnt very memorable?

And I've just heard we are about to hear a bit of his film music on R3. I'll see how long I can remember it.

[salymap]

Yes years ago his music was popular. I think it has a lot of character and appeal of RVW with,maybe,something missing.

His London Overture and song, Sea Fever, were played as much as some of the things we moan about today,as being too repetitious.

[Mary Chambers]

I like some of the songs, especially the cycle The Land of Lost Content, but what I've heard of the rest of his music didn't interest me much - but then I usually like songs best.

[Ferretfancy]

I find the orchestral music very memorable, and of course the Piano Concerto. The piano music is highly regarded by some

[Ferretfancy]

Sorry ! I was ging to cancel and clicked on the wrong bit!
Ferret

[Norfolk Born]

I have a wonderful 2-CD Chandos set of the chamber works featuring Lydia Mordkovitch among others.

[Serial_Apologist]

Anyone who claims that Ireland's music lacks memorability has clearly not experienced the near-impossibility of ridding their head of the marvellous, life-enhancing melodies from the last movements of the second Violin Sonata and the Piano Sonata, not to mention the glorious chorale to hope in the choral/orchestral masterpiece "These Things Shall Be". As to what Salymap says with regard to Ireland possibly lacking something which was present in Vaughan Williams, the most obvious answer which occurs to me is the absence of symphonic output. Yet, as the abovementioned sonatas clearly demonstrate, Ireland was capable of sustained sonata-developmental thinking; and additionally he was a fine orchestrator.

My own view, expressed on the old BBC board, was that Ireland probably "lost the thread" during the 1930s, having in the Sonatina of 1927 jumped too far from the comparative restrictions of his own resources into the kind of advanced harmonic territory his exact contemporary and near-neighbour, geographically and idiomatically, Frank Bridge, found himself much more at home in. The "Legend" for piano and orchestra of 1932, written but 2 years after the "English Ravelian" Piiaon Concerto, and originally, apocryphally, intended as a follow-on, is a pale facsimile of its forerunner, and the subsequent piano miniatures, delightful as they are, marked stylistic reversion to the WWI period of the "Decorations". Fine piece that it indeed is, "These Things Shall Be", is reversion of another kind: to the world of Parry's "Blest Pair of Syrens", albeit lent a new, utopian slant, (possibly in-part courtesy Ireland's friendship with his erstwhile pupil, the socialist composer Alan Bush, partly his own pacifism); the London Overture is in the vein of Eric Coates, and the few pieces of JI which I have heard broadcast from the WW2 period and later are likewise backward-looking, suggesting a composer's vocabulary lacking in the resources needed for expansion or self-renewal.

I still love (and try vainly to perform) his music, though...

S-A

[salymap]

A lot to think about there S-A, thanks. saly.

[Stanfordian]

I find the orchestral music very memorable, and of course the Piano Concerto. The piano music is highly regarded by some

I really rate Ireland's Piano Concerto. It's a crying shame that the Manchester based Halle and other British orchestras do not play the Ireland concerto especially as Ireland was local boy born in the leafy suburbs of Bowdon. In his recent MusicWeb-International/Seen and Heard interview Sir Mark Elder clearly likes the score but feels that it may not have the audiance appeal of say a Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninov piano concerto.
MusicWeb-International link: http://www.musicweb-international.co...er_Cookson.htm
Seen and Heard link: http://www.seenandheard-international.com/

Recently I've been listening to the new account of Ireland's Piano Concerto on Naxos splendily played by John Lenehan and the RLPO. But on balance I just prefer the really special performance by Eric Parkin and LPO conducted by Bryden Thomson on Chandos.

[moeranbiogman]

Ireland's 'Sarnia' - an Island Sequence' for piano has been orchestrated by Martin Yates and issued on the Dutton Epoch label alongside a realisation of the sketches for Moeran's Second Symphony. The Royal National Scottish Orchestra respond well to what some call the 'English La Mer'. Well worth investigating!

[Pabmusic]

...the London Overture is in the vein of Eric Coates...

There's an interesting footnote. The piece began life as A Comedy Overture for brass band (it's still widely played). When Ireland revised and orchestrated it, he wanted to call the revision 'In Town', but changed his mind when In Town Tonight, with Eric Coates’s Knightsbridge March as its signature tune, became a nightly institution.

[Bryn]

I really rate Ireland's Piano Concerto. It's a crying shame that the Manchester based Halle and other British orchestras do not play the Ireland concerto especially as Ireland was local boy born in the leafy suburbs of Bowdon. In his recent MusicWeb-International/Seen and Heard interview Sir Mark Elder clearly likes the score but feels that it may not have the audiance appeal of say a Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninov piano concerto.
MusicWeb-International link: http://www.musicweb-international.co...er_Cookson.htm
Seen and Heard link: http://www.seenandheard-international.com/

Recently I've been listening to the new account of Ireland's Piano Concerto on Naxos splendily played by John Lenehan and the RLPO. But on balance I just prefer the really special performance by Eric Parkin and LPO conducted by Bryden Thomson on Chandos.

I have lost count to the number of recordings (LP, CD, cassette, etc) I have of the Ireland Piano Concerto. The one I keep going back to is the Horsley, which I understand Ireland held in high regard. The work used to be an annual favourite at the Proms, and got revived there a few times back in the '80s IIRC. For all that it owes to Prokofiev's Third, it has quite enough individuality to merit it a stronger place in the repertoire.

[salymap]

I have a lot more Ireland than I thought. Just found an LP comprising violin sonata no2 [Tessa Robbins and Alan Rowlands, also Fantasy Sonata,Decorations andThe Holy Boy. Also 20 songs with John Shirley-Quirk,accom Eric Parkin.
Must dust down my record player. Also remember overture Satyricon, Rhapsody Mai-Dun,The Forgotten Rite.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

"These things shall be" is a work I simply love. As SA points out, it's every much in the Blest Pair of Sirens mould, but that's no bad thing. When I first heard it, I thought it must be a lost choral work by Elgar.

(I see the software is playing up. I only typed the word "thought" once.)