Brian Boydell

Brian Boydell (17 March 1917 – 8 November 2000) was an Irish composer whose works include orchestral pieces, chamber music, and songs. He was Professor of Music at Trinity College, Dublin, for 20 years, founder of the Dowland Consort, conductor of the Dublin Orchestral Players, and a prolific broadcaster and writer on musical matters.

Brian Boydell was born in Howth, County Dublin, into a prosperous Anglo-Irish family. His father James ran the family maltings business while his mother, Eileen Collins, was one of the first women graduates of Trinity College. Following their son's birth, the Boydells moved from Howth and lived in a succession of rented houses before settling in Shankill, County Dublin. The young Boydell began his formal education at Monkstown Park in Dublin and was subsequently sent to the Dragon School at Oxford. From there he went to Rugby, where he came under the influence of Kenneth Stubbs, the music master. Although Boydell later spoke of his resentment at the anti-Irish attitude he experienced at Rugby, he appreciated the very good education in science and music he received there.

Having completed his secondary education, Boydell spent the summer of 1935 developing his musical knowledge at Heidelberg, where he wrote his first songs and also studied organ. He won a choral scholarship to Clare College, Cambridge, where, perhaps through parental pressure, he studied natural science, graduating in 1938 with a first-class degree.

However, his love of music led him next to the Royal College of Music where he studied composition under Patrick Hadley, Herbert Howells, and Vaughan Williams. Already a good pianist, Boydell also became a proficient oboe player during this time.

Upon the outbreak of World War II, Boydell returned to Dublin and achieved further academic success in 1942 with a Bachelor of Music degree from Trinity College. He also took further lessons in composition from John F. Larchet.

Boydell's busy working life combined teaching, performing and composing. Following a brief stint in his father's business, Boydell plunged himself into Dublin's classical musical scene. In 1942, he succeeded Havelock Nelson as conductor of the Dublin Orchestral Players, beginning an association with the amateur orchestra that would endure for a quarter of a century. Two years later he was appointed Professor of Singing at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, a position he held for eight years. Along with fellow composers Edgar M. Deale, Aloys Fleischmann, and Frederick May he founded the Music Association of Ireland in 1948 as a vehicle to promote classical music throughout the country.

Boydell's interest in Renaissance music, in particular the madrigal, led in 1959 to him founding the Dowland Consort, a vocal ensemble with which he performed for many years and recorded an LP. In 1962, having obtained a Doctorate in Music, he was appointed Professor of Music at Trinity College and immediately revamped the course making it more relevant to the second half of the twentieth century. He also found time to sit on the Arts Council throughout the 1960s, 70s, and early 80s.

Boydell's communication skills combined with his infectious enthusiasm made him a natural broadcaster. The appeal of his programmes on the history and performance of music, first on RTÉ Radio and later on Telefís Éireann, went beyond a specialist audience and were, for many people, their introduction to a new world of aural pleasure.

Boydell had many interests beyond music. As a surrealist painter in the 1940s (he took lessons from Mainie Jellett), he was a member of The White Stag group. He was also passionate about cars and photography.

Following retirement from Trinity as Fellow Emeritus. Boydell devoted himself to musical scholarship, writing two books on the music of 18th century Dublin. He also contributed to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. He was elected to Aosdána in 1984.

Brian Boydell died at his home in Howth at the age of 83 in the company of his wife of 56 years, Mary (née Jones), and their sons, Cormac and Barra. A third son, Marnac, predeceased him.

As a young composer, Boydell was influenced by the music of Delius, Bartók, and Sibelius. He wanted to write modern Irish music that followed the European tradition. However, he also tried to avoid the temptation to incorporate folk tunes into his work to give it a distinctive national identity.

His first major success came in 1948 with In Memoriam Mahatma Gandhi op. 30, a 12-minute orchestral piece written in tribute to the recently assassinated Indian leader whom Boydell admired. The composer conducted the Radio Éireann Symphony Orchestra at its premiere in the Phoenix Hall, Dublin. His first String Quartet op. 31, composed in 1949, won the Radio Éireann Chamber Music Prize.

Over the course of the next five decades, Boydell produced a great variety of music, ranging from orchestral works such as his Violin Concerto op. 36 and Masai Mara op. 87 to more intimate compositions for voice or solo instruments. An example of the latter is his piece for harp A Pack of Fancies for a Travelling Harper op. 66, premiered at the Dublin Festival of Twentieth Century Music in 1971.

His final work, a short composition for brass band entitled Viking Lip-Music op. 91, was given its premiere by the Royal Danish Brass Ensemble at the Drogheda Arts Centre in November 1996 with the composer in attendance.

In his latter years Boydell viewed his place in the greater world of late twentieth-century music with a certain wry detachment.

"I've now become something of an old fogey, but in the 1940s I was regarded as the naughty boy of frightfully modern music."

Orchestral

• Pregaria a la Verge del Remei op. 14 (1941; rev. 1945) for string orchestra
• The Strings are False op. 16 (1942)
• Laïsh op. 17 (1942)
• Symphony for Strings op. 26 (1945; rev. 1946) for string orchestra
• Magh Sleacht op. 29 (1947)
• In memoriam Mahatma Gandhi op. 30 (1948)
• Ballet Suite: The Buried Moon op. 32a (1949)
• Violin Concerto op.36 (1953; rev. 1954)
• The Wooing of Etain, two suites op. 37 (1954)
• Megalithic Ritual Dances op. 39 (1956)
• Meditation & Fugue op. 40 (1956; rev. 1957)
• Elegy & Capriccio op. 42 (1956) for clarinet and string orchestra
• Ceol cas corach op. 46 (1958)
• Shielmartin Suite op. 47 (1959)
• Richard's Riot op. 51 (1961) for percussion and orchestra
• Symphonic Inscapes op. 64 (1968)
• Jubilee Music op. 73 (1976)
• Partita Concertante op. 75 (1978)
• A Wild Dance for Ceol Chumann na nÓg op. 78 (1982)
• Masai Mara op. 87 (1988)

Cantatas

• Hearing of Harvests op. 13 (W.H. Auden) (1940) for baritone, mixed chorus and orchestra
• Five Joyce Songs op. 28a (1946; rev. 1948) for baritone, mixed chorus and orchestra
• The Deer's Cry op. 43 (Thomas Kinsella) (1957) for baritone and orchestra
• Mors et vita op. 50 (William Dunbar and anonymous writers) (1961) for soprano, tenor, bass, mixed chorus and orchestra
• A Terrible Beauty is Born op. 59 (W.B. Yeats, Francis Ledwidge, Thomas MacDonagh, AE, George Sigerson, Tom Kettle) (1965) for narrator, soprano, alto, bass, mixed chorus and orchestra
• Four Yeats Poems op. 56 (1966) for soprano and orchestra
• The Carlow Cantata (or, The Female Friend) op. 83 (various authors) (1984) for soprano, tenor, bass, mixed chorus and orchestra
• Under No Circumstances: An Historical Entertainment op. 85 (1987) for narrator, tenor, baritone, mixed chorus and orchestra

Chamber music

• Oboe Quintet op. 11 (1940)
• String Trio op. 21 (1944)
• Sonata for Cello & Piano op. 24 (1945)
• String Quartet No. 1 op.31 (1949)
• Elegy op.42a (1956) for 2 violins (or violin, clarinet) and piano
• String Quartet No. 2 op. 44 (1957)
• Quintet for Flute, Harp and Strings op. 49 (1960; rev. 1966 & 1980)
• Four Sketches for Two Irish Harps op. 52 (1962)
• String Quartet No. 3 op. 65 (1969)
• Five Mosaics op. 69 (1972) for violin and harp or piano
• Fred's Frolic op. 74a (1977) for piano 4-hands
• Confrontations in a Cathedral [no op. number] (1986) for organ, harp, percussion
• Adagio and Scherzo for String Quartet op. 89 (1991)

Piano music

• Nine Variations on 'The Snowy Breasted Pearl' (1935)
• Berceuse for a Young Pianist op. 20 (1943)
• Suite: Naughty Children op. 27 (1945), incl. Sleeping Leprechaun op. 27a
• Dance for an Ancient Ritual op. 39a (1959)
• Capriccio op. 48, (1959)
• Sarabande op. 53 (1963)
• The Maiden and the Seven Devils op. 90 (1992)

Other solo instrumental

• A Pack of Fancies for a Travelling Harper op. 66 (1970) for harp
• Three Pieces for Guitar op. 70 (1973)
• An Album of Pieces for the Irish Harp op. 88 (1989)

Choral

• An Easter Carol (anonymous) op.12 (1940) for soprano, tenor, bass, mixed chorus
• Shatter Me Music op. 33 (Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. J.B. Leishman) (1952) for mixed voice choir
• The Owl and the Pussy Cat op. 34 (Edward Lear) (1952) for vocal quartet
• Noël op. 41 (1956), 2 descant rec, 2trvv, str orch, or org;
• Two Madrigals op. 54 (John Fletcher, George Wither) (1964) for mixed voice choir
• Three Madrigals op. 60 (Philip Sydney and anonymous writers) (1967) for mixed voice choir
• Mouth Music for Ten Voices op. 72 (1974) for mixed voice choir
• The Small Bell op. 76 (1980) for mixed voice choir, flute, harp, string quartet
• I Will Hear What God the Lord Will Speak op. 86 (Psalm 85) (1988) for mixed voice choir and organ

Songs (for voice and piano if not mentioned otherwise)

• Wild Geese op. 1 (P.H.B. Lyon) (1935)
• Rushlights op. 3 (anonymous) (1935)
• Cathleen, the Daughter of Hoolihan op. 4 (W.B. Yeats) (1936)
• She Weeps over Rahoon op. 5 (James Joyce) (1936)
• Watching the Needleboats at San Sabba (James Joyce) (1936; rev. 1937)
• The Witch op. 6 (W.B. Yeats) (1938)
• Alone op. 15 (James Joyce) (1941)
• The Feather of Death op. 22 (Thurloe Connolly) (1943) for baritone, flute, violin, viola, cello
• Sleep Now op. 23 (James Joyce) (1944) for soprano, oboe or violin, string orchestra
• Five Joyce Songs op. 28 (1946)
• Because Your Voice Was at My Side op. 25 (James Joyce) (1948) for voice and pf (or oboe d'amore, violin, vioaa, cello
• Three Yeats Songs op. 56a (1965) for soprano and Irish harp
• Two Yeats Songs (1966)
• In memoriam Thomas McDonagh op. 59a (Francis Ledwidge) (1966)

• "Music in Ireland", in: The Bell 14.1 (1947), p. 16–20
• "Culture and Chauvinism", in: Envoy 2 (May 1950), p. 75–9
• "The Future of Music in Ireland", in: The Bell 16.4 (1951), p. 21–9
• "The Dublin Musical Scene 1749–50 and Its Background", in: Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association 105 (1978–9), p. 77–89
• (ed.): Four Centuries of Music in Ireland (London: BBC, 1979)
• "Half a Century of Music in Dublin", in: Dublin Historical Record 37.3 & 4 (1984), p. 117–21
• "Georgian Lollipops, or The Lighter Side of Classical Music", in: Popular Music in Eighteenth-Century Dublin, ed. Shields (Dublin: Folk Music Society of Ireland, 1985), p. 5–11
• "Music before 1700" and "Music 1700–1850", in: A New History of Ireland vol. 4, ed. Moody & Vaughan (Oxford, 1986), p. 542–67 and 568–628
• A Dublin Musical Calendar, 1700–60 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1988), ISBN 978-0-7165-2430-4
• Rotunda Music in Eighteenth-Century Dublin (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1992), ISBN 978-0-7165-2487-8

For a full discography see here.

• Ceathrar: Contemporary Irish String Quartets, features String Quartet No. 2 op. 44, performed by Vanbrugh Quartet, on: Chandos CHAN 9295 (CD, 1994).
• Brian Boydell. Orchestral Music, features In memoriam Mahatma Gandhi op. 30, Violin Concerto op. 36, Masai Mara op. 87, Megalithic Ritual Dances op. 39, performed by RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Colman Pearce (cond.), on: Marco Polo 8.223887 (CD, 1997).
• British Brass Connection, features Viking Lip-Music op. 91, performed by Royal Danish Brass, on: Rondo Grammofon 8358 (CD, 1997).
• E-motion, features Three Pieces for Guitar op. 70, performed by John Feeley (guitar), on: Black Box Music 1002 (CD, 1998).
• In Blue Sea or Sky, features A Pack of Fancies for a Travelling Harper op. 66, performed by Cliona Doris (harp) on: Riverrun RRCD59 (CD, 2003).
• John Finucane: Clarinet Variations, features Elegy and Capriccio op. 42, performed by John Finucane (clarinet), RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Robert Houlihan (cond.), on: RTÉ Lyric fm CD 124 (CD, 2009).
• Brian Boydell: The Complete String Quartets, features String Quartet No. 1 op. 31, String Quartet No. 2 op. 44, String Quartet No. 3 op. 65, Adagio and Scherzo op. 89, performed by Carducci Quartet, on: Carducci Classics CSQ 8841 (CD, 2010).