Iacobus Leodiensis [Iacobus de Montibus, Iacobus de Oudenaerde]

Ireland [Hutcheson], Francis

(b Dublin, 13 Aug 1721; d Dublin, 5 Sept 1784). Irish amateur composer and violinist. He was the son of Francis Hutcheson, a Presbyterian minister who ran a private academy in Dublin, c1716–29, and then became professor of moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow. Francis the younger took the MA and the MD at Glasgow in 1744 and 1750 respectively. He was professor of chemistry at Trinity College, Dublin, from 1760 until 1767, and was twice president of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. He was on the music committee for the Rotunda Hospital concerts from 1774 until his death, and consultant physician to a number of Dublin hospitals. He was probably the ‘Dr Hutchinson’ who was a founder-member of Lord Mornington's Musical Academy (1757). There is continual confusion concerning the spelling of his name. When he was granted the degree of Doctor in Physic by the Board of Trinity College, Dublin in 1761, the Senate minutes described him as ‘Hutchinson’, though he signed the register ‘Hutcheson’. During the same period there was a Francis Hutchinson, five years his junior, who graduated from Trinity College in the late 1740s.

Although content to appear under his own name as an amateur violinist, he adopted the pseudonym of Francis Ireland as a composer. He wrote several vocal works of considerable charm and merit, of which the four-part madrigal Return, return my lovely maid is a particularly fine example. The Noblemen’s and Gentlemen’s Catch Club awarded him three prizes between 1771 and 1773, for his catch As Colin one evening, his glee Jolly Bacchus (Dublin, c1780) and his serious glee Where weeping yews. 11 glees and eight catches by him are printed in Warren’s collections, and The Gentleman’s Catch Book published in Dublin by Henry Mountain includes six items by him. He also published his father’s System of Moral Philosophy (1755). (B. Boydell: A Dublin Musical Calender, 1700–1760, Dublin, 1988)

BRIAN BOYDELL

Ireland, John (Nicholson)

(b Bowdon, Cheshire, 13 Aug 1879; d Rock Mill, Washington, Sussex, 12 June 1962). English composer, pianist and teacher.

1. Life.

A somewhat painful and unhappy childhood, followed by the early death of both parents, did much to form the lonely, introspective side of Ireland's personality. Throughout his life he was plagued by feelings of insecurity and inadequacy, which affected his creativity in a number of ways, not all of them negative. His acute self-criticism, his yearning for a spiritual home – the Channel Islands or West Sussex – and the related desire to escape from the present into a distant past, deeply affected much of his music and gave it its distinctive character.

His training was extensive and thorough. He entered the RCM in 1893 and for the next four years concentrated his attention on the piano, studying with Frederic Cliffe. During that time he became increasingly involved in composition and determined to study under Stanford, which he did from 1897 to 1901. Stanford's methods could be harsh, even cruel, and the sensitive Ireland suffered more than most, but he was not completely subdued and in later life he always spoke gratefully of Stanford's teaching. In 1895 he took his FRCO, and ten years later a Durham BMus. In 1932 Durham University honoured him with a doctorate; he had already received an honorary RAM and FRCM.

On leaving the RCM Ireland made his living mainly as an organist and choirmaster. He was at St Luke’s, Chelsea, from 1904 to 1926, during which time he established himself in the front rank of the English composers of his generation. From at least 1920 to 1939 he taught composition at the RCM, where his pupils included Richard Arnell, Benjamin Britten, Alan Bush, E.J. Moeran and Humphrey Searle. For many years he lived at Gunter Grove, Chelsea, in what Eugene Goossens described as ‘the quiet haven of a few intimate friends’. Friendship meant much to Ireland, especially after his disastrous marriage, which ended after only a year in 1928. The friendships with his pupil Helen Perkin, who inspired the Piano Concerto (1930), and with the writer Arthur Machen are of particular interest. He was much in sympathy with Machen's pagan mysticism, which is reflected in a number of works, notably the orchestral poem The Forgotten Rite (1913) and Legend (1933) for piano and orchestra. Places, too, had a strong influence on his inner life: Chelsea, Deal, Chanctonbury Ring and several locations in the Channel Islands have close associations with his music. His retirement to Guernsey was cut short by the German occupation in 1940, and it was West Sussex that finally claimed him. Despite failing health, this closing phase in his life was perhaps the happiest. He was no longer composing – his last important work, the film score for The Overlanders, dates from 1946–7 – but he saw a revival of interest in his music, for which the newly-formed John Ireland Society (1960) was partly responsible.

2. Works.

Ireland's published compositions span a period of 50 years, from the two string quartets of 1897 – these were suppressed throughout his lifetime – to the overture Satyricon (1946) and the music for The Overlanders. The solid workmanship insisted on by Stanford provided a lasting foundation: in Ireland's best work a firm structural sense is combined with a deeply personal poetry. The accomplished Brahmsian manner of his youth – as, for instance, in the Sextet (1898) – was radically changed by the impact of Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky. It was in the piano music that these influences worked themselves out, leaving Ireland with a feeling for harmony and sonority decidedly his own. In his mature work there is an English lyricism that is closer to Elgar than to Vaughan Williams, a chromatically embellished harmony that is quite distinct, and a balance of interest that shows strong roots in the Classical-Romantic tradition.

Although it was with songs and piano pieces that Ireland first came before a wider public, his most important early successes were in the field of chamber music: the Phantasie Trio (1906), the Violin Sonata no. 1 (1908–9, Cobbett Prize) and, in particular, the Violin Sonata no.2 (1915–17). This last is a landmark in the English music of that period, and both the Cello Sonata (1923) and the Fantasy-Sonata for clarinet and piano (1943) are likewise outstanding creations in their own genres. All three works are distinguished by their lyrical and structural qualities and also by the admirable, wholly integrated writing for the piano. Of the three piano trios, no.2 (1917), which is another one–movement ‘fantasy’, is the most impressive.

Ireland developed at a time when the piano could still be regarded as a sounding-board for the romantic temperament. His Piano Sonata (1918–20) is a large-scale, full-bodied utterance – ‘one of the finest and most important since Liszt's’ (Hill, 1946) – but it is not without certain weaknesses of expression, notably an excessive reliance upon semiquaver figuration, particularly in the middle of the texture, and a tendency to inflated climaxes. The leaner, more experimental Sonatina (1926–7) is likely to be thought the better work; but Ireland's most striking contribution is in the best of his shorter pieces, of which three broad types are readily discernible. The central vein is contemplative and includes such pieces as For Remembrance and Soliloquy, which seem to contain the very essence of Ireland's sentiment. On either side are the more Impressionistic, represented in different ways by Amberley Wild Brooks and Le Catioroc (from Sarnia), and the frankly sanguine, with simple, lively rhythms – for instance, Merry Andrew and Ragamuffin(from London Pieces). Some of the richest pieces, notably April, do not fit comfortably into any of these categories but reveal Ireland's lyrical gift at its most impressive – a lyricism that is harmonic and textural no less than melodic.

The many songs are of unequal quality. While the best of them are among the finest by English composers this century, there are others in which a natural warmth of sentiment tends to spill over into sentimentality. The once popular Spring Sorrow and The Bells of San Marie seem somewhat faded, confined within the taste of their period. At the other extreme are the Five Poems by Thomas Hardy (1926) and the Songs Sacred and Profane (1929–31). Ireland's songs are usually as good as their ‘accompaniments’: faced with a poem that he liked, he was never at a loss for an eloquent voice part, but the magic really worked when his poetic feeling for the piano was fully engaged. There are also some very successful songs in the robust, boisterous manner of I have Twelve Oxen, in which the piano is strictly accompanimental.

Ireland's achievement in the orchestral field is small in extent but distinguished. The Piano Concerto, one of his richest and most rewarding works, is a classic of 20th-century English music and its posthumous neglect can only be deplored. It is individual in both form and content, and is capable of making a wide appeal. The Concertino pastorale for strings (1939) and A London Overture (1936) are also well worth reviving. In all three works there is a characteristic blend of outgoing and in-dwelling qualities of expression, and a combination of poetic fancy and precise craftsmanship that is unmistakable. The earlier of the two orchestral poems, The Forgotten Rite, has a very distinctive atmosphere, but the somewhat later Mai-Dun is less successful. Late in life, in the splendid score for The Overlanders, he showed how confident and vigorous a composer for orchestra he might have been (see the Suite, ed. Charles Mackerras, and Two Symphonic Studies, arr. Geoffrey Bush).

The choral work These Things shall Be was written in fulfilment of a BBC commission to mark the coronation of George VI. It was a challenging response, both humanist and socialist, and the music was designed to have a wide and immediate appeal: though full of personal fingerprints, it manages to suggest not only Parry but also Walton. Longmire wrote that in postwar disillusionment Ireland came to hate the work; at the time, however, it undoubtedly expressed his deepest hopes for humankind. The musical invention may well be noble and apt rather than inspired, but a fine performance can be a moving experience.

WORKS

(selective list)

vocal

Choral: Vexilla regis, S, A, T, B, SATB, brass, org, 1898; Te Deum, SATB, org, 1907; Greater Love Hath No Man (motet), Tr, Bar, SATB, org, 1911; An Island Hymn, TTBB, 1915; These Things Shall Be (J.A. Symonds), Bar/T, SATB, orch, 1937; Ex ore innocentium, Tr, pf/org, 1944; service settings, hymns, incl. Love Unknown, 1919; partsongs, unison songs

Song-Cycles/sets: [5] Songs of a Wayfarer (W. Blake, W. Shakespeare, D.G. Rossetti, E. Dowson, J.V. Blake), c1905–11; Marigold (D.G. Rossetti, Dowson), 3 songs, 1913; 2 Songs (R. Brooke), 1917–18; Mother and Child (C. Rossetti), 8 songs, 1918; 3 Songs (A. Symons), 1918–19; 2 Songs (A. Huxley, P. Sidney), 1920; The Land of Lost Content (A.E. Housman: A Shropshire Lad), 6 songs, 1920–21; 3 Songs (T. Hardy), 1925; 5 Poems (Hardy), 1926; 3 Songs (E. Brontë, anon., D.G. Rossetti), 1926; We'll to the Woods No More (Housman), 2 songs and 1 piano solo, 1927; 2 Songs (Symons, D.G. Rossetti), 1928; [6] Songs Sacred and Profane (A. Meynell, S.T. Warner, W.B. Yeats), 1929–31; 5 16th-Century Poems (W. Cornish, T. Howell, anon., N. Breton, R. Edwardes), 1938

Other songs: Hope the Hornblower (H. Newbolt), 1911; When Lights Go Rolling Round the Sky (J.V. Blake), 1911; Sea Fever (J. Masefield), 1913; The Heart's Desire (Housman), 1917; The Bells of San Marie (Masefield), 1918; Earth's Call (H. Munro), 1918; If There Were Dreams to Sell (T.L. Beddoes), 1918; I Have Twelve Oxen, 1918; Remember (M. Coleridge), 1918; The Sacred Flame (Coleridge), 1918; Spring Sorrow (R. Brooke), 1918; Hawthorn Time (Housman), 1919; Love is a Sickness Full of Woes (S. Daniel), 1921; The Merry Month of May (T. Dekker), 1921; The Vagabond (Masefield), 1922; What Art Thou Thinking of?, 1924; When I am Dead, my Dearest (C. Rossetti), 1924; Great Things (Hardy), 1925; Santa Chiara (A. Symonds), 1925; If We Must Part (Darson), 1929; Tutto è sciolto (Joyce), 1932

instrumental

Orch: Tritons, sym. prelude, 1899; Orch Poem, a, 1903–4; The Forgotten Rite, prelude, 1913, Mai-Dun, sym. rhapsody, 1920–21; Pf Conc., E, 1930; A Downland Suite, brass band, 1932; Legend, pf, orch, 1933; Comedy Ov., brass band, 1934; A London Ov., 1936; Concertino pastorale, str, 1939; Epic March, 1942; Julius Caesar (incid music), 1942; Satyricon, ov., 1946; The Overlanders (film score), 1946–7

Chbr: Str Qt no.1, 1897; Str Qt no.2, 1897; Sextet, cl, hn, str qt, 1898; Phantasie-Trio, a, pf trio, 1906; Sonata no.1, d, vn, pf, 1908–9, rev. 1917, rev. 1944; Sonata no.2, a, vn, pf, 1915–17; Pf Trio no.2, 1917; Sonata, g, vc, pf, 1923; Pf Trio no.3, E-e, 1938; Fantasy-Sonata, E-e, cl, pf, 1943

Kbd (pf, unless otherwise stated): In Those Days, 2 pieces, 1895; Sea Idyll, 1899–1900; Elegiac Romance, org, 1902; Villanella, org, 1904; Capriccio, org, 1911; Decorations, 3 pieces, 1912–13; The Almond Tree, 1913; [4] Preludes, 1913–15; Rhapsody, 1915; [3] London Pieces, 1917–20; Merry Andrew, 1918; The Towing Path, 1918; Sonata, 1918–20; Summer Evening, 1919; The Darkened Valley, 1920; Amberley Wild Brooks, 1921; For Remembrance, 1921; Equinox, 1922; On a Birthday Morning, 1922; Soliloquy, 1922; Prelude, E, 1924; April, 1925; Bergomask, 1925; Sonatina, 1926–7; February's Child, 1929; Aubade, 1929; Ballade, 1929; The Ballade of London Nights, c1930; Month's Mind, 1933; Green Ways, 3 pieces, 1937; Sarnia, 3 pieces, 1940–41; 3 Pastels, 1941; Miniature Suite, org, 1944; Columbine, 1949; Meditation on John Keble's Rogationtide Hymn, org, 1958

MSS in GB-Lbl

Principal publishers: Augener, Boosey & Hawkes, Chester, Curwen, Galliard, Novello, Stainer and Bell, Thames

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Grove5 (P. Crossley-Holland) [incl. selective work-list]

Grove6 (H. Ottaway) [incl. further bibliography]

E. Evans: ‘John Ireland’, MQ, v (1919), 213–20

W. Lyle: ‘Songs of John Ireland’, The Sackbut, ii/12 (1921–2), 27–30

J. Holbrooke: Contemporary British Composers (London, 1925), 72–82

A.E.F. Dickinson: ‘The Progress of John Ireland’, MR, i (1940), 343–53

N. Townshend: ‘The Achievement of John Ireland’, ML, xxiv (1943), 65–74

R. Hill: ‘John Ireland’, British Music of Our Time, ed. A.L. Bacharach (Harmondsworth, 1946), 99–112

H. Ottaway: ‘The Piano Music of John Ireland’, MMR, lxxxiv (1954), 258–66

M. Schafer: British Composers in Interview (London, 1963), 24–35

J. Longmire: John Ireland: Portrait of a Friend (London, 1969)

M.V. Searle: John Ireland: the Man and his Music (Tunbridge Wells, 1979)

C. Scott-Sutherland: John Ireland (Rickmansworth, 1980)

G. Bush: ‘John Ireland: a Personal Impression’, Left, Right and Centre (London, 1983), 100–112

S. Banfield: Sensibility and English Song (Cambridge, 1985), 159–173, 233–247

B. Docherty: ‘The Murdered Self: John Ireland and English Song 1903–12’, Tempo, no.162 (1989), 19–26

M. Pilkington: Gurney, Ireland, Quilter and Warlock (London, 1989)

A. Rowlands: ‘John Ireland: a Significant Composer?’, R.C.M. Magazine, clxvii (1992), 18–24; clxviii (1993), 13–19

S. Craggs: John Ireland: a Catalogue, Discography and Bibliography (Oxford, 1993)

F. Richards: The Music of John Ireland (London, 2000)

HUGH OTTAWAY