This is a valuable addition to the sparse John Ireland
bibliography for it is the first book to really examine the music. Fiona
Richards, who is a lecturer in music at the Open University, analyses
the music in depth and at the same time looks at the extraordinary contradictory
traits that made up the composer’s complex personality. The biographical
details are cursory and taken out of order to comply with the author’s
chosen format – looking at the music in designated ‘compartmentalised’
chapters: i.e: Anglo-Catholicism; Paganism; Country; City; Love; War;
and Songs and sonatas, sacred and profane: encountering Ireland and
knowing Ireland. The biographical detail has of course been covered
earlier in Muriel Searle’s John Ireland The Man and His Music
(1979) and John Longmire’s John Ireland: Portrait of a Friend
(1969). Ms Richards, however, does not shrink from revealing the more
controversial aspects of the composer’s character and his music.
Ms Richards includes many musical examples of the chamber
works, piano pieces, songs and orchestral works and church music, and
her analyses alongside the snippets of biographical detail are most
illuminating. For instance, she closely examines the song, The trellis
"one of the most idyllic and rapturous of all Ireland’s works…here
the emphasis is more on love than on its rural backdrop…the subject
of which is secret love, the trellis shielding ‘silent kisses’, white
caresses’ and ‘whisper’d words’ from ‘prying eyes’ ". Significantly
the work was composed around the time when Ireland was enjoying a period
of career success and personal happiness especially with St Luke’s chorister
Arthur Miller.
Just as compulsive are the analyses of the ‘pagan works’
such as The Forgotten Rite and Satyricon. Ireland was
fascinated with the occult and we may deduce that he strayed dangerously
close to the art of black magic. Certainly, he was drawn to the suggestive
‘other-worldly’ writings of Arthur Machen and was entranced with sites
of antiquity like Maiden Castle in Dorset and ancient earth works in
the Channel Islands and similar sites in Sussex. His last home was a
windmill directly in the shadow of Chanctonbury Ring (so cruelly cut
down in the gales of 1987) the site of a witch’s coven. In this context,
Ms Richards’ many well-chosen and revelatory quotations from Ireland’s
correspondence is another strength. I was particularly interested to
read the following comment from Jocelyn Brook, "…with Ireland I
was aware of [an] immediate impact: a sense of recognition, as
though, turning a corner in a strange countryside, I had suddenly caught
sight of a familiar landmark. The simile is not accidental, for Ireland’s
music, at its most characteristic, evokes for me always the idea of
a particular kind of landscape: a country of the mind, remote, mysterious
yet essentially English. The scene I envisaged more often than not is
a prospect of bare chalk downs interspersed with deep woodlands, vaguely
apprehended in the bleak twilight of a winter’s evening; there is a
sense of far illimitable distances, a hint perhaps of some car au
fond des bois echoing sadly beyond the lonely downland, on the crest
of which ancient earthworks stand silhouetted against a rainy sunset."
Ireland himself professed a real liking for this interpretation. In
complete contrast there are many works that underline John Ireland’s
Anglo-Catholic beliefs and these too are intelligently examined by Ms
Richards. It is interesting to note that Ireland’s last composition
was a church work. It was commissioned from America - the Meditation
on John Keble’s Rogationtide Hymn. "In one sense the Meditation
is a clear manifestation of Ireland’s own faith and long-standing associations
with the Anglican church…however things are not so simple and even here
a secular motif permeates the music." "Rogationtide is a religious
festival that would have appealed to Ireland on account of its pagan
roots."
There are some difficulties. Richards’ sectionalising
is not always entirely successful. The Second Violin Sonata, for instance
is disconcertingly split between the Chapters 1 and 8 both covering
‘Songs and Sonatas’ with no real coverage in the Chapter headed ‘War’
considering its associations with the Great War and its wartime performances
by Albert Sammons in uniform! There is also a too-desultory coverage
of These Things Shall Be with no appreciation of the baritone
soloist’s part or of the big broad tune at the heart of the work Elgar
did not work, in the 1920s, at the Fittleworth cottage, where he had
composed his Cello concerto and final chamber works. He all but left
it in 1920 when his wife died. I was a bit bemused to associate Beethoven
with the divine slow movement of Ireland’s Cello Concerto. A real aggravation
is the poor reproduction of the map of West Sussex around Amberley,
Chanctonbury and Harrow Hill (associated with Legend for Piano and
Orchestra) and the almost indecipherable map of Chelsea.
Nonetheless apart from these relatively minor carps,
this is a meritorious and long overdue assessment of the music of John
Ireland. It is to be hoped that it will spur more performances and recordings
of this important and relatively neglected English composer.
Ian Lace
The John Ireland
Website on Musicweb
