Irish Musical Studies – serie

Explores the world of women's professional and amateur musical activity as it developed on and beyond the island of Ireland.In a story which spans several centuries, the book highlights representative composers and performers in classical music, Irish traditional music, and contemporary art music whose contributions have been marginalised in music narratives. As well as investigating the careers of public figures, this edited collection brings attention to women who engaged with and taught music in a variety of domestic settings. It also shines a spotlight on women who worked behind the scenes to build infrastructures such as festivals and educational institutions which remain at the heart of the country's musical life today. The book addresses and reconsiders ideas about the intersections of music, gender, and Irish society, including how the national emblem of the harp became recast as a symbol of Irish womanhood in the twentieth century. The book is divided into four parts. Part 1 surveys women musicians in Irish society of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Part 2 discusses women and practice in Irish traditional music. Part 3 studies gaps and gender politics in the history of twentieth-century women composers and performers. Part 4 situates discourses of women, gender, and music in the twenty-first century. The book's contributors encompass musicologists, cultural historians, composers, and performers.

The first investigation into the choral foundation of the Chapel Royal, Dublin Castle.The Chapel Royal, Dublin Castle, was the place of worship of the British monarch's representative in Ireland from 1814 until the inception of the Irish Free State in 1922. It was founded and maintained by the joint efforts of church and state, and thus its history provides valuable insights into how the relationship between religion and politics shaped Irish society and identity. The Dublin Chapel was established in imitation of the Chapel Royal of St James's Palace, London, and was served by a staff of clergy and musicians. Its musical foundation was a formal and independent entity, with its own personnel and performance traditions. Its distinctive repertoire included music from the English and Irish cathedral traditions, as well as works written by composers associated directly with the Chapel. This study investigates the Chapel's constitution, liturgy and music through an examination of previously unexplored primary material. Discussion of the circumstances of the Chapel's founding and its governance structures situates the institution in the context of the church-state relationship that existed following the Union of 1800. Further, by exploring architecture, churchmanship and musical style, O'Shea demonstrates how the Chapel was part of a wider aesthetic and liturgical tradition. The choral foundation is brought to life with accounts of the Chapel's clergy, organists, boy choristers and gentleman singers, which provide insights into Dublin's social history during a period of significant change. This book reflects on the Dublin Chapel Royal's legacy a century after its closure and offers a new perspective into a forgotten corner of Irish cultural, religious and political history.

Substantially revised and expanded edition that sheds new light on Stanford's career as composer, conductor and teacher, as well as promoter of opera in English and arranger of Irish folk music.The Anglo-Irish composer Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) is often remembered as the teacher of many of Britain's first generation of twentieth-century composers. He was, however, a composer of great diversity. An enthusiastic composer for the theatre and opera house, he was a symphonist, songwriter, and composer of church music; his national, indeed, international reputation was also reflected in the many works he wrote for some of the most prominent virtuosi of the time. Driven by a strong sense of ambition, he sought to advance the cause of British music not only as a composer but as a university professor, practical musician and conductor. Pre-eminent in the 1880s and 90s, he was eclipsed by Elgar during the Edwardian years, but his creative powers continued unabated until the early 1920s. As the author of a wide range of musical works, which we are now able to experience through more live performances, broadcasts and recordings (the latter has expanded exponentially since the first edition of this book), we are now aware of the composer's greater musical achievements, particularly in the province of opera. This expanded and revised edition offers new musical and biographical discussion drawing on a wider range of primary and secondary sources. It brings new insights to Stanford's life as performer, conductor and teacher/author at Cambridge and the RCM, as well as an arranger and editor of Irish folk music. Another emphasis in this revised edition is Stanford's lifelong aspiration to promote opera in English and the establishment of an English National Opera in London. Stanford's politics, particularly his opposition to Gladstonian Liberalism and to Home Rule for Ireland, also receive rightful discussion within the context of his creative output.

Traces the position, experiences and reception of women in Irish traditional music through detailed ethnographic and statistical findings.This book is the first of its kind to engage with the larger subject of women in commercial Irish traditional music. It considers the experiences of performers in the various commercial arenas of the tradition, while also engaging in critical discussions of choice, agency, feminism and sexualisation. It reveals how the commercial music industry and Celtic music label continues to place women within a stereotypical idealised role or occupation.The book provides new insight into the legacy of women-led bands and compilations as well as their impact on Irish traditional music over five decades. Its findings on commercial dance shows are equally significant. While these shows had a positive impact on performers, at the same time they enforced gendered, racial and heteronormative expectations. Drawing on extensive ethnographic and statistical research, the book finds strong evidence that women and other marginalised practitioners continue to face greater challenges and different expectations when maintaining a professional career and participating in Irish traditional music. It also uncovers characteristics and dynamics related to the recreational and commercial spaces of the Irish traditional music and Irish dance scene that enable harmful and predatory behaviour. The author's findings support understandings and aid future legislation for creating a safe, inclusive and equitable performance space for all.Cover artwork by Claire Prouvost

An absorbing study of the development and reception of musical culture in Ireland by a pioneering and deservedly renowned author.This volume is a collection of fourteen essays on the history and reception of Irish music and music in Ireland. It addresses three prevailing themes: the historiography of Irish music, the influence of music on Irish writing (and vice versa), and the cultural identity and reception of Irish music both domestically and in the world at large. Its principal protagonists include Thomas Moore, W. H. Grattan Flood, George Moore, Edward Martyn, Charles Villiers Stanford, James Joyce, Dora Pejačević, Ina Boyle, Aloys Fleischmann and Jennifer Walshe. These essays also identify and interrogate key questions underpinning a general crisis of reception in relation to Irish music, and particularly art music, within the domain of Irish studies. Fieldwork examines this crisis in the aftermath of The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland (published in 2013) and a major retrospective of Irish art music, Composing the Island (curated and presented in 2016). It thereby engages closely with contemporary Irish art music and the challenges which this music has faced in the early decades of the twenty-first century. This well-conceived and beautifully written work testifies to Harry White's central place in the shaping of the discourse surrounding the cultural history of Irish music over the last 40 years. White's gift for expression and memorably poetic turns of phrase allows the complexity of ideas and range of historical and literary knowledge examined in these essays to be deftly excavated and evaluated. Curiosity, provocativeness, imagination and literature are threaded through his exploration of how Irish history and experience have been imagined musically.

Reassesses the life, music and enduring influence of Charles Wood, a central figure in British and Irish music and one of the foremost teachers of his generation.Charles Wood (1866-1926), Armagh chorister and student of Chares Villiers Stanford, was one of the most significant figures in British and Irish music of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and one of Britain's most important teachers. This study not only evaluates the substance of Wood's ecclesiastical music, in which, together with Stanford, his contribution was pre-eminent, but also his work in other genres, such as secular vocal music, arrangements of Irish folksong and the Irish cultural revival, orchestral music, opera and, in particular, the string quartet. Wood also found himself at the heart of a new antiquarian revival of early music, plainsong, psalmody and hymnody where his knowledge was uniquely encyclopaedic. This book offers a reassessment of his lasting legacy, the admiration he drew from figures such as Vaughan Williams, Dent and Tippett, and also discusses a considerable series of posthumous publications.