Irish Classical Music Composers in my collection

[fergus]

Sean O'Riada is mainly known for reviving Irish music but he wrote some classical stuff himself. Very little of it is available as recordings.

In the 70's there was an LP called 'Vertical Man' with 'Hercules Dux Ferraire' and 'Four Holderlin Songs'

'Hercules Dux Ferraire' has been reissued -- see above.

He has a large choral work called 'Nomos No. 2' [I think 'Hercules Dux Ferraire' is Nomos No. 1 and the piano concerto is Nomos No. 3 .. 'nomos' is Greek for 'law']
Nomos No. 2 is based on the Greek text 'Oedupus at Colonos' [Sophocles].

Some references ....

http://www.cmc.ie/composers/composer.cfm?composerID=97

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Se%C3%A1n_%C3%93_Riada

http://test.seanoriada.ie/saothair-works

Just to add my own contribution to this composer:


Seán Ó Riada:





Seán Ó Riada was born in Cork in 1931. He studied music at University College Cork with Aloys Fleischmann and received his BMus in 1952. He was assistant music director at Radio Éireann, Ireland’s national radio and TV station, between 1954 and 1955 and was music director at the Abbey Theatre from 1955 to 1962. He lectured in music at University College Cork from 1963 until his premature death in 1971.

Although best known for his pioneering work in Irish traditional music, Ó Riada wrote a number of original compositions which incorporated modern compositional techniques. These include a series of orchestral works given the Greek title Nomos, written between 1957 and 1966; the pastoral elegy, The Banks of Sullane (1956) and Four Hölderlin Songs (1956). He also wrote music for several films, including Mise Éire and Saoirse.

(Notes from the Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland)


Along with the excellent CD listed above by James I also have Ó Riada's two masses on CD....






Ó Riada is probably best known for his film music especially Mise Éire (1959) which made him an instant celebrity....






I also have on 45 RPM vinyl the music to the film Saoirse....






Ó Riada was also the founder of the traditional music group Ceoltóirí Chualann and this iconic album is also in my collection....





Ó Riada was one of the major influences on traditional Irish music and he recorded this solo album not long before his death at the early age of 40 which I also have on CD....

[fergus]

A.J. Potter:






A.J. Potter was born in Belfast in 1918. After a colourful career in several occupations (including that of plantation manager in West Africa) he settled in Dublin in the early 1950s. He had already composed a striking Choral Mass (Missa Brevis) in 1939 but from 1952 onwards he devoted himself almost exclusively to composition apart from a very active teaching career.
His output was prodigious, including a series of orchestral arrangements of Irish traditional music running into several hundred titles but also containing many major works in almost every genre. Although he was a superb theorist and academician (awarded a Doctorate by T.C.D. in 1953) his music is immensely direct and entertaining, however serious and profound his thought. He displays this gift in his Opera “The Wedding” (to his own libretto) the first production of which at the Abbey Theatre in 1981 he did not live to see. In the middle sixties he had written another Opera “Patrick” which was commissioned and produced by RTE Television.
His interest in the theatre led to a sizeable series of ballet scores produced in Dublin in the fifties – outstanding and most memorable among these was perhaps “Careless Love”.
Popular ballad opera (“The Scatterin”) and light concert suites such as the “Sodaz” Suite came frequently from his desk but his serious symphonic works are his most important contribution.
Apart from the “Sinfonia de Profundis” he had earlier written a Concerto for Orchestra, a poignant Stabat Mater, a Sinfonia da Chiesa, many compelling choral works such as the Belloc Songs and Epigrams and a remarkable Cantata “The Cornet of Horse” to poems by Rainer Maria Rilke.
A.J. Potter died in 1980.

(Notes by Brendan Kennelly)



Sinfonia de Profundis:






Clamos Cervi:





Potter composed Clamos Cervi for the Choir of St. Patrick’s Cathedral to sing at the first Dublin International Organ Festival in 1980.



Rhapsody under a High Sky:





This is an early work revealing something of Potter’s time in the Royal College of Music where he was a student of Vaughan Williams. Originally part of a diptych, the Rhapsody was paired with the Overture to a Kitchen Comedy, a pairing that brought the composer the First Carolan Prize for composition in 1952. The character of the Rhapsody is indebted to the composer’s appreciation of the paintings of the Irish artist Paul Henry.

[Diapason]

I've little to add for now, but this is a fascinating thread!

[Adrian]

Anybody remember the Cork 800 celebrations in 1985( I think)?

So I was perusing about a vinyl LP which I have.... City of Cork Male Voice Choir Paddy Whiskey Album.



I did not search eBay... but I came across these two links...

http://www.offtherecord.ie/index.php?ma ... b7e1577d91

and a older link in Adverts

http://www.adverts.ie/vinyl/paddy-whisk ... 85/3412316

I had no idea that this album had reached such financial heights.

Anybody else aware of certain 'Gems' in their collection which have grown in financial value?

[fergus]

I've little to add for now, but this is a fascinating thread!

Thank you Simon and join in whenever you wish. My collection of Irish composers is modest but it still shows the depth and quality that is there waiting to be investigated.

[fergus]

That is a limited edition Adrian and as such, given the right quality of the vinyl and cover it would command a high price due to local interest.

[Seán]

I've little to add for now, but this is a fascinating thread!

Thank you Simon and join in whenever you wish. My collection of Irish composers is modest but it still shows the depth and quality that is there waiting to be investigated.

It is a superb thread, Fergus, you are to be congratulated on such a fine piece of work. To my shame I hadn't realised that we had so many classical composers, thanks for enlightening me.

[fergus]

Charles Villiers Stanford:






Charles Stanford was born in Dublin on 30th September 1852, the son of a prosperous Irish lawyer. Both of his parents were extremely musical, the father a singer and the mother a pianist. Stanford’s musical talent became obvious from his earliest years: he is said to have started composing from the age of four. The young Charles learnt the piano and organ from a series of excellent local teachers, and gained a first class classical grounding at what was said to be the finest school in Dublin. When he was ten he visited England for the first time. The Stanfords came to England again in 1864. In Dublin, works by the teenage Stanford were already being performed, and a career as a musician rapidly became inevitable. In 1870 he went to Cambridge as a choral scholar. He took over the conductorship of the Cambridge University Musical Society when he was only twenty and soon bore it to heights of excellence. At the same time he became the Trinity College organist. He graduated in 1874 and then studied in Germany during which time the love and admiration he already had for the music of Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms was consolidated. He heard Liszt play in Leipzig and attended one of the first Ring cycles at Bayreuth. The first of his ten operas “The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan” was completed in 1878 and staged in Hanover in 1881.
In 1875 Stanford received a commission from Tennyson for incidental music to his play “Queen Mary”, though intrigue prevented its use. His First Symphony of 1876 (his first of seven) gained second prize in a competition that year; a Festival Overture (1870) was a success; and he continued to run the Cambridge University Musical Society, using it as a platform to introduce his own works. He organized the English premiere of Brahms’ First Symphony under Joachim in 1877. He took on the London Bach Choir in 1885; Oxford awarded him the honorary degree of Mus.D in 1883, as did Cambridge in 1887, where he was also appointed Professor of Music in the same year. Stanford died on 29th March 1924 and his body was interred in Westminster Abbey.



Requiem Mass:






Stanford’s “Requiem” was composed in memory of the eminent painter Lord Leighton, who died on 29th January 1896. Much use is made of the four soloists, singly and in ensemble, the vocal writing has Italianate eloquence and the sonorous chordal writing is underpinned by an orchestral style that is largely content to accompany the vocal forces.

(All notes by David J. Brown)



Psalm 150 & St. Patrick’s Breastplate:

Two choral works from this album....






Sonata Celtica No. 4:

[fergus]

It is a superb thread, Fergus, you are to be congratulated on such a fine piece of work. To my shame I hadn't realised that we had so many classical composers, thanks for enlightening me.

Thank you Seán; it is a labour of love and an attempt to get the message of our own composers out there.

[fergus]

Charles Villiers Stanford:

This is a composer that I need to investigate more. I know him largely for his beautiful Requiem but I also realize that there is a lot more of his work to be investigated. I know that at least one other member has some of his works so I would gladly accept recommendations.