Ireland, John (EN)

Ireland John Nicholson, *13 August 1879 Bowdon (Cheshire), †12 June 1962 Rock Mill, Washington (Sussex), English composer, pianist and teacher. He came from an arts background; his parents – Alexander and Anne Elizabeth (née Nicholson) – were writers. Ireland, who was orphaned shortly after entering the Royal College of Music in London in 1893, grew up with a profound sense of loneliness that remained with him throughout his life. Until 1897 he studied with F. Cliffe (piano), and from 1897 to 1901 with Ch. Stanford (composition). In 1905, he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in music from Durham University. Between 1904 and 1926, he served as organist at St Luke’s Church, whilst also playing the organ and conducting choirs in other London churches. During this time, he established various artistic contacts, particularly within literary circles, including with Th. Hardy, and became friends with A. Machen. Between 1923 and 1939, Ireland was Professor of Composition at the Royal College of Music (his pupils included R. Arnell, B. Britten and H. Searle); in 1924 he was awarded honorary membership of the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music; in 1932 he received an honorary doctorate from Durham University. Ireland spent almost his entire life in London, leaving only to hike around the Channel Islands (Jersey, Guernsey), and after the outbreak of the Second World War, travelling to small villages in West Sussex (Chanctonbury Ring, Rock Mili). After 1947, he practically ceased his creative work. The John Ireland Society, founded at that time, initiated the publication and recording of all of Ireland’s works; many of them were only discovered after the composer’s death.

Ireland had an introverted nature, prone to reflection and self-criticism, finding fulfilment in exploring and deepening his experiences rather than in seeking new horizons. He composed slowly, crossing out and destroying much of his work, and often returned to pieces he had already written to subject them to further revisions, arrangements and reworkings (for example, the Piano Trio No. 3 is a compilation of the second version of the Piano Trio No. 2 and a fragment of the Trio for violin, clarinet and piano, sketched in 1913). Consequently, his body of work is not quantitatively impressive. It is dominated by works of small or medium size, often grouped into short cycles, sometimes consisting of just two movements, revealing the composer’s lyrical disposition and his tendency to yield to inspiration, amongst which one can discern recurring themes – a fascination with nature, literature and the distant past.

Ireland’s main areas of creative output – symphonic music, chamber music, vocal music and piano works – were treated by the composer as equally important; organ and choral works of a functional nature, however, constitute a relatively narrow margin of his output; like his works for wind orchestra, they stem from the circle of the native English tradition.

The evolution of Ireland’s musical language shows many parallels with the changes taking place in the works of composers of his generation – from Ravel to Stravinsky – whilst completely disregarding the influence of the Viennese School; this evolution was most pronounced in his symphonic works, as well as in his songs and piano pieces, and least so in his chamber music, where classical forms were retained. Trained by Stanford in the technical and aesthetic principles of the prevailing style of the 1870s and 1880s, Ireland cultivated, until around 1910, a repertoire of forms and genres typical of that convention; many of these works bear the hallmarks of his training, such as the symphonic prelude Tritons (a study in sonata form and orchestration) or both string quartets. In the most mature works of this period (Phantasie-Trio, Violin Sonata No. 1 – winner of the 1909 Cobbett Prize), the influence of Brahms’s work is evident (formal conception, thematic material, elements of texture) as well as that of the late Dvořák (a colouristic approach to harmony, pentatonicism, synthetic timbres). In some songs (The Songs of Wayfarer) and piano pieces (In Those Days, Sea Idyll) from this period, a tendency towards modality is evident, resulting in a harmonic texture that is not overly sharp but occasionally bypasses triadic structures and expressive cadences, with short motto-like motifs in place of traditionally developed themes. These tendencies developed in his works from 1910 to 1935; Ireland then abandoned the sonata form with its consistent thematic development, replacing it with simple reprise structures, constructed on the principle of loose associations with an initial motto with a simple, diatonic, often asymmetrically oscillating character. This is particularly evident in works in which Ireland conjured visions of the prehistoric past of the Channel Islands (Decorations for piano, the symphonic prelude The Forgotten Rite) and West Sussex (the symphonic rhapsody Mai-Dun, Legend for piano and orchestra), fuelled by his reading of A. Machen’s books and T. Hardy’s poetry. His orchestral works – evocative lyrical images – are characterised by a subdued timbre, a preference for the middle and lower registers, and the sound of widely used brass, a predominance of homophonic texture with a tendency towards polymelodic passages, a moderate tempo, a considerable dynamic range, periodically formed melodic lines with a distinct modal character, and essentially tonal harmony with a predominance of major keys, though not always amenable to functional interpretation. Many of these characteristics are also evident in his piano works, both in cycles (Four Preludes) and individual pieces (The Almond Trees, Rhapsody and Ballade of London Nights), which feature a light, transparent texture, as well as in his songs, beginning with the Marigold cycle (1913). Among the most outstanding songs in Ireland’s oeuvre are the cycles set to the poetry of Housman (The Land of Lost Content, We’ll to the Woods no More) and to Hardy’s texts (Five Poems), in which there was a significant loosening of functional relationships. By contrast, new elements of musical language were less evident in the chamber works and the Piano Sonata and Sonatina, which represent a classical trend, though they are somewhat more pronounced in the Cello Sonata and the single-movement Piano Trio No. 2. Nevertheless, both these works and the more traditionally conceived pieces have become permanent fixtures in the English repertoire.

In the final period of Ireland’s creative output (ca. 1935–47), alongside works that continued both stylistic conventions (the lyrical piano cycle Sarnia, named after the Roman name for Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands, and, on the other hand, the more classical Piano Trio No. 3 and the Fantasy-Sonata for clarinet and piano), works appeared that utilised elements of free polyphony, arising from the consistent unfolding of figures into which his previous mottos had been transformed; these changes also extended to the harmony, sharpened by the clashes between voices, and the timbre, which moved towards distinct, at times garish, colours. As a result of these changes in harmony and timbre, as well as the increased tempo and movement, A London Overture, and especially the Satyricon overture, approach the style of the Neo-Baroque. Both overtures reveal certain traits of popular art and gravitate towards the tradition of English promenade music. During the last dozen or so years of his life, Ireland composed only a few individual songs and short piano pieces.

Ireland’s music never gained recognition beyond the borders of England, despite its high artistic value. In the history of English music, Ireland opened a new chapter in contemporary lyric poetry. Intuition and the ability to concentrate, coupled with an immense sensitivity that sometimes led to depression, enabled Ireland to encompass a wide range of emotions in his work, drawn both from his own experiences and from his reading of literary works. The depth of a mystical sense of nature (Decorations, The Legend), but also the ability to gaze upon the metropolitan surroundings (London Pieces, A London Overture), the capacity to capture fleeting states of nostalgia (Soliloquies) and bashful humour (Three Pastels), as well as the exploration of strong and enduring emotions (Five Poems), have found in Ireland’s work individual and convincing realisations, though not without a certain distance, often tinged with irony and ambiguity (Songs Sacred and Profane). Nevertheless, Ireland’s work can hardly be described as programmatic or illustrative; its value is determined by the autonomous qualities of the musical language, which, though moderately contemporary, is characterised by consistency and exceptional coherence, unclouded by eclecticism.

Literature: E. Chapman J. Ireland. A Catalogue of Published Works and Recordings, London 1968; V. Lyle Songs of J. Ireland, “The Sackbut” II, 1921/22; E. Blom Ireland’s Piano Concerto, “The Monthly Musical Record” LXI, 1931; E.J. Morean J. Ireland as Teacher, “The Monthly Musical Record” LXI, 1931; A.E.F. Dickinson The Progress of J. Ireland, “The Music Review” I, 1940; N. Townshend The Achievement of J. Ireland, “Music and Letters” XXIV, 1943; S. Goddard J. Ireland’s Fantasy-Sonata for Clarinet and Pianoforte, “Tempo” 1944 No. 8; H. Ottaway The Piano Music of J. Ireland, “The Monthly Musical Record” LXXXIV, 1954; H. Ottaway Ireland’s Shorter Piano Pieces, “Tempo” 1959 No. 52; J. Longmire J. Ireland Portrait of a Friend, London 1969; M.V. Searle J. Ireland. The Man and His Music, Tunbridge Wells 1979; R. Gower J. Ireland’s Organ Music, “The Musical Times” CXX, 1979.