John Ireland

John Nicholson Ireland (13 August 1879 – 12 June 1962) was an English composer.

Life

John Ireland was born in Bowdon, near Altrincham, Manchester, into a family of Scottish descent and some cultural distinction. His father, Alexander Ireland, a publisher and newspaper proprietor, was aged 70 at John's birth. John was the youngest of the five children of Alexander's second marriage (his first wife had died). His mother, Annie née Nicholson, was 30 years younger than Alexander. She died in October 1893, when John was 14, and Alexander died the following year, when John was 15.^[1] John Ireland was described as "a self-critical, introspective man, haunted by memories of a sad childhood".^[2]

By that time he had entered the Royal College of Music. He studied piano and organ there, and later composition under Charles Villiers Stanford. He subsequently became a teacher at the College himself, his pupils including the socialist composer Alan Bush; Geoffrey Bush (no relation to Alan), who subsequently edited or arranged many of Ireland's works for publication; Ernest John Moeran (who admired him); Benjamin Britten (who found Ireland's teaching of less interest); and Anthony Bernard. He was sub-organist at Holy Trinity Sloane Street, London SW1, and later became organist and choirmaster at St. Luke's Church, Chelsea.

Ireland frequently visited the Channel Islands and was inspired by their landscape. He was evacuated from them just before the German invasion during World War II.

John Ireland was a lifelong bachelor, except for a brief interlude when, in quick succession, he married, separated, and divorced. On 17 December 1926, aged 47, he married a 17-year pupil, Dorothy Phillips. This marriage was dissolved on 18 September 1928,^[1] and it is believed not to have been consummated.^[3] He took a similar interest in another young student, Helen Perkin (1909-1996), a pianist and composer, to whom he dedicated both the Piano Concerto in E flat and the Legend for piano and orchestra (which began life as a second concerto). She gave the premiere performance of both works,^[1] but any thoughts he had for a deeper relationship with her came to nothing when she married George Mountford Adie, a disciple of George Gurdjieff, and she later moved with Adie to Australia.^[4] Consequently, Ireland withdrew the dedications. In 1947 Ireland acquired a personal assistant and companion, Mrs Norah Kirkby, who remained with him till his death.^[1] Despite these associations with women, various commentators read homoerotic references in his songs and other works.^[5]

On 10 September 1949, his 70th birthday was celebrated in a special Prom concert, at which his Piano Concerto was played by Eileen Joyce,^[6] who was also the first pianist to record the concerto, in 1942.

Ireland retired in 1953, settling in the small hamlet of Rock in Sussex, where he lived in a converted windmill for the rest of his life.

He died at age 82 in Washington, Sussex of heart failure. He is buried in Shipley churchyard near his home.

Music

From Charles Villiers Stanford, Ireland inherited a thorough knowledge of the music of Beethoven, Brahms and other German classical composers, but as a young man he was also strongly influenced by Debussy and Ravel as well as by the earlier works of Stravinsky and Bartók. From these influences, he developed his own brand of "English Impressionism", related more closely to French and Russian models than to the folk-song style then prevailing in English music.

Like most other Impressionist composers, Ireland favoured small forms and wrote neither symphonies nor operas, although his Piano Concerto is among his best works. His output includes some chamber music and a substantial body of piano works, including his best-known piece The Holy Boy, known in numerous arrangements. His songs to poems by A. E. Housman, Thomas Hardy, Christina Rossetti, John Masefield, Rupert Brooke and others, are a valuable addition to English vocal repertoire, and in the opinion of some are among the best of English art song. Due to his job at St Luke's Church, he also wrote hymns, carols, and other sacred choral music; among choirs he is probably best known for the anthem Greater love hath no man, often sung in services that commemorate the victims of war. His Communion Service in C is also performed. He appears as pianist in a recording of his Violin Sonata No. 1 (of 1909) with Frederick Grinke, who performed and recorded several of his chamber works.

Ireland also wrote the score for the Australian film The Overlanders (his only film score), from which an orchestral suite was extracted posthumously by Charles Mackerras. Some of his pieces, such as the popular A Downland Suite and Themes from Julius Caesar, were completed or re-transcribed after his death by his student Geoffrey Bush.

Works

Chamber works

• Fantasy Sonata (clarinet & piano)
• Holy Boy (cello & piano)
• Holy Boy (string quartet)
• Phantasie Trio
• Sonata for cello & piano
• Sonata for violin & piano No 1
• Sonata for violin & piano No 2
• Sextet
• String Quartet No. 1 in D minor
• String Quartet No. 2 in C minor
• Trio No 2 (violin, cello & piano)
• Trio No 3 (violin, cello & piano)

Church music

• Benedictus in F
• Communion service in C
• Evening Service in F
• Greater love hath no man (motet)
• The Hills (chorus a capella)
• My Song Is Love Unknown (hymn)
• Te Deum in F
• Vexilla Regis (anthem)
• Ex Ore Innocentium (treble voices and organ or piano)

Film score

• The Overlanders

Orchestra

• Comedy Overture
• Concertino Pastorale
• Downland Suite
• Epic March
• Holy Boy (string orch)
• London Overture
• Mai-Dun
• Meditation on John Keble's Rogation Hymn
• Orchestral Poem
• Poem
• Satyricon - Overture
• Symphonic Rhapsody
• Symphonic Studies
• Two Symphonic Studies

Organ

• Alla marcia
• Capriccio
• Elegiac Romance
• Holy Boy
• Meditation on John Keble's Rogation Hymn
• Miniature Suite
• Sursum corda
• Elegy (from Downlands Suite - arr. Alec Rowley)
• Epic March (arr.Robert Gower)

Piano

• Almond Tree
• Aubade
• April
• Ballad of London Nights
• Ballade
• The Boy Bishop
• Columbine
• The Darkened Valley
• Decorations
• Equinox
• February's Child
• Grecian Lad
• Greenways
• In Those Days
• Island Spell
• Leaves from a child's sketchbook
• London Pieces
• Merry Andrew
• Month's Mind
• On a Birthday Morning
• Prelude in E flat
• Preludes (1913-5)
• Puck's Birthday
• Rhapsody
• Sarnia
• Sea Idyll
• Soliloquy
• Sonata in E
• Sonatina
• Spring will not wait
• Summer Evening
• Three Pastels
• The Towing Path
• Two pieces (1921)
• Two Pieces (1924)

Piano and orchestra

• Concerto in E flat
• Legend

Songs

• Bells of San Marie
• During Music
• Friendship in Misfortune
• Hawthorn Time
• The Heart's Desire
• Her Song
• Holy Boy
• Horn the Hornblower
• I have twelve oxen
• If there were dreams to sell
• If we must part
• Land of Lost Content (song cycle)
• Love and Friendship
• Mother & Child (song cycle)
• My true love hath my heart
• Salley Gardens
• Santa Chiara
• Sea Fever
• Song from o'er the hill
• Songs of the Wayfarer (song cycle)
• Songs Sacred and Profane (song cycle)
• Spring sorrow
• Thomas Hardy Songs
• Three Ravens
• The Trellis
• Tryst (in Fountain Court)
• The Vagabond
• What art thou thinking of?
• When I am dead, my dearest

Chorus and Orchestra

• These Things Shall Be

Other (unclassified)

• Bagatelle
• Bed in Summer
• Berceuse
• Brooks Equinox
• Cavatina
• Elegiac Meditation
• The Forgotten Rite
• Scherzo & Cortege
• Tritons

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d} Stewart R. Craggs, John Ireland
2. ^ [1]
3. ^ Hyperion: The Romantic Concerto 39
4. ^ Review of Lane’s recording
5. ^ Hyperion, The Songs of John Ireland
6. ^ Alan Bush Music Trust: The Correspondence of Alan Bush and John Ireland

External links

• The John Ireland Trust
• John Ireland, from an original broadcast by Ian Lace
• Free scores by John Ireland in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)