This programme of music by Irish composer Ina Boyle (1889-1967), a one-time student of Vaughan Williams, collates several of her major orchestral works. The rhapsodic Violin Concerto of 1935 is in three continuous movements, and both conductor Ronald Corp and soloist Benjamin Baker interpret the music with sympathetic attention to detail, maintaining its natural ebb and flow. Boyle wrote three symphonies, and this disc presents the long overdue recording of the First Symphony, subtitled Glencree (In the Wicklow Hills), which dates from 1924-27. The young cellist Nadège Rochat gives a powerful reading of the Psalm for cello and orchestra, written in 1927, while four short but captivating orchestral pieces complete the programme – which reveals Ina Boyle as a composer of originality and invention.
“This is the first time Boyle’s music has been treated to a single-composer anthology of her orchestral works. It is here performed with sympathetic insight and some rejuvenating zest. [...] The music-making here is personable, tuneful and completely approachable.”
Ina Boyle (1889-1967)
1. Overture for orchestra (1933-34) Allegro vivace
Concerto for violin and orchestra (1932-33 rev. 1935) BB
2. i Lento ma non troppo – Poco più lento – Tempo primo
3. ii Adagio – Animato e crescendo
4. iii Allegro ma non troppo – A tempo, tranquillo – Tempo primo – Teneramente e tranquillo – Tempo primo
Symphony No. 1 “Glencree” (In the Wicklow Hills) (1924-27)
5. i On Lacken Hill (Molto moderato – Più lento, tranquillo)
6. ii Nightwinds in the Valley (Allegro molto – Tranquillo)
7. iii Above Lough Bray (Adagio – Poco più con moto, ma sempre molto moderato)
8. Wildgeese: Sketch for small orchestra (1942) Lento misterioso
9. Psalm for cello and orchestra (1927 rev. 1928) NR
Lento – Poco allegro, inquieto – Lento – Andante, tranquillo – Animato – Adagio
A Sea Poem: Theme, variations and finale for orchestra (1919)
10. Introduction (Lento, molto sostenuto)
11. Theme (Lento e sostenuto)
12. Variation I (Più animato)
13. Variation II (Più vivace, scherzando)
14. Variation III (Più largamente)
15. Variation IV (Adagio, molto tranquillo)
16. Variation V (Allegro molto)
17. Variation VI (Più mosso – Adagio)
18. Finale (Lento, quasi Tempo primo, tranquillo)
SACD-ONLY BONUS TRACK (N.B. This track is playable only on SACD players.)
19. Colin Clout (A Pastoral after Spenser’s The Shepheard’s Calender) (1921)
Molto adagio – Poco più mosso – Molto tranquillo
Ronald Corp conductor
BB Benjamin Baker violin
NR Nadège Rochat cello
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Produced in association with BBC Radio 3 and the BBC Concert Orchestra.