International Virtual Conference 2020

“Women are not born to compose: Female Musical works from 1750 to 1950”

Organized by the Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini, Lucca Palazzetto Bru Zane – Centre de musique romantique française, Venice, Italy.

Dublin City University’s PhD Scholar, Orla Shannon, will give a paper entitled, ‘‘Gentle Miss Ina Boyle’ (1889–1967) and gender (mis)representation in Ireland’s canon of twentieth-century art song”, at this year’s International Virtual Conference on Saturday 28th November 2020.

UPCOMING LIVE RECORDING PROJECT AT WIGMORE HALL: SONGS OF INA BOYLE

THE BRINGER OF DREAMS: SONGS OF INA BOYLE

UPCOMING LIVE RECORDING PROJECT AT WIGMORE HALL - OCTOBER 2020

Ina Boyle is finally gaining recognition as a leading Irish composer of the early 20th Century. Her huge body of work, largely unperformed, sits in manuscript in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin. Living quietly in rural Ireland, Boyle travelled regularly to London for lessons with her mentor Vaughan Williams. Cut off from London musical life by the Second World War she saw performances of her work dwindle. In 1960, Janet Baker's debut Wigmore Hall recital included a work by Boyle. 60 years later, Ina Boyle songs return to Wigmore Hall.

Robin Tritschler (tenor)

Paula Murrihy (mezzo)

Ben McAteer (baritone)

Iain Burnside (piano)

The accompanying Ina Boyle Song Book will be produced by Technological University Dublin’s Conservatory of Music & Drama and will make the songs accessible for performance and for examination syllabi in Ireland and the UK.

Walkinstown Library - Forgotten Irish Composers

Wednesday 19th February 2020 at 6.30pm

Soprano: Orla Shannon

Pianist: Aileen Cahill

Music by Ina Boyle, Joanne Trimble and Rhoda Coghill

Ina Boyle at the Chapel's Royal, HM Tower of London

Boyle’s choral anthem The Transfiguration was performed by the choir of the Chapel’s Royal, HM Tower of London, on 7th July 2019. Directed by the Master of Music, Colm Carey.

Ina Boyle's Symphony No.1 'Glencree' performed at the BBC Concert orchestra's 'Nightwinds in the Valley'

NIGHTWINDS IN THE VALLEY

Conductor: Ronald Corp

Broadcast by BBC Radio 3 on 22 May 2019

INA BOYLE'S ITALIAN PREMIERE

On 7th March 2019, the Sanremo Symphony Orchestra gave the Italian premiere performance of Ina Boyle’s Violin Concerto, with soloist, Razvan Stoica and conducted by Maria Luisa Macellaro la Franca, at the Sanremo Ariston Theatre.

Italian conductor, Maria Luisa, will receive the international prize "Donna di Fiori 2019" at the Sanremo Casino Theater for her human commitment to the equality of rights between women and men composers.

“The eve of Ina Boyle’s 130 th birthday and International Woman’s Day were celebrated on 7 March in the Teatro dell’Opera del Casino, Sanremo. Boyle’s violin concerto, performed only once since it was composed in 1935, was given its European premiere by the Orchestra Sinfonica di Sanremo, with esteemed conductor, Maria Luisa Macellaro, and the Romanian violinist, Razvan Stoica, playing a 1729 Antonius Stradivarius instrument. The annual flower carnival was in progress and the audience were given fragrant sprays of mimosa on the way in to the concert hall. The first work on the programme was Tchaikovsky’s ‘Waltz of the Flowers’. The perfume of the mimosa pervaded the hall, all the more appropriate as the finale of the concerto is based on a poem, ‘All Souls’ Flower’, with the text written in the score by the composer. Music and mimosa blended together to provide a memorable celebration of the composer Ina Boyle.”

— Dr Ita Beausang

The Irish Times - A new map of Ireland: Honouring some of our outstanding women

Ina Boyle named number 23 on the Irish Times’ list of Outstanding Irish Women.

“On a tour of Ireland, one might easily ask: where are the women? There are statues to a few (we counted just five), a smattering of commemorative plaques, and the Rosie Hackett bridge in Dublin. But most of Ireland’s remarkable heroines are invisible.

Perhaps this is because, although there has always been a tradition of casting generals in bronze or chipping them out of marble, a great deal of women’s heroism has always been unsung. Who would ever erect a statue to a nurse? Or a needleworker? In celebration of International Women’s Day, we’re changing that with our own modest proposal: a new map of Ireland, with sites for sculptures, new street names and even a mountain pass.

On our map we have inventors, social reformers, artists, scientists, a pioneering aviator and a mountaineer. There could have been so many more. With one exception, all the women in our list are no longer with us, but all deserve to be celebrated and remembered into the future.

Illustrations by Dearbhla Kelly”

— The Irish Times - Gemma Tipton

“23.: Ina Boyle (1889-1967)
Statue, Enniskerry, Co Wicklow
“I think it is most courageous of you to go on with so little recognition. The only thing to say is that it does come finally,” Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote to Ina Boyle in 1937. The Enniskerry-born composer’s visits to her mentor and champion in London were cut short by the second World War. Her ensuing isolation meant her work was seldom performed, but more recent rediscovery of her powerful and wonderful music is cementing her reputation as one of Ireland’s most important composers.”

— The Irish Times - Gemma Tipton

Ina Boyle - Artalinna's Disc of the Day

Girl from Ireland: Jean-Charles Hoffelle

The first CD dedicated entirely to the orchestral music of Ina Boyle has been named ‘Disc of the Day’ by French Magazine, Artalinna. Follow the link below to read full the article by Jean-Charles Hoffelle.

“The abundant album here adds the great theme and variations that is A Sea Poem , the moving Psalm for cello (fervently said by the bow Nadège Rochat ), Colin Clout and Wildgeese , pastoral delighted that reveal the most beautiful composer known to Ireland with Hamilton Harty . ”

— (Translated from French)

The Guardian Angel in Seattle

Ina Boyle’s choral work ‘The Guardian Angel’ taken from her collection of 15 Gaelic Hymns (1923-24) performed by The Compline Choir a St Mark’s Cathedral, Seattle, USA.

The work was performed as part of a celebration mass for the Feast of St Michael and all Angels, on 30 September 2018. The mass is available to listen back via the Compline Choir’s podcast service (follow the link below).

Programme:

ORISON: The Guardian Angel – Ina Boyle (1889-1967)

PSALM 103 – Peter R. Hallock (1924-2014)

HYMN: Round the Lord in glory seated (Tune: Rustington) – Charles Hubert Hastings Parry (1848-1918)

NUNC DIMITTIS: Plainsong, Tone I; harm. William Byrd (c. 1543-1623)

ANTHEM: Tibi Christe, splendor Patris – Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c. 1525-1594)

Jason Anderson, director • Jeffrey Ricco, reader • Jeremy Matheis, cantor • Tyler Morse, orison soloist

Ina Boyle a 'Noteworthy Woman of Irish music'

"Ina Boyle is a noteworthy woman of Irish music, so why haven't we heard of her?" - so asks the Irish Examiner's Cathy Desmond

INA BOYLE is something of an enigma. Her name is unfamiliar to most music lovers, yet she was one of the most prolific and lauded of Ireland’s 20th century composers. A protegé of Ralph Vaughan Williams, she was the only female composer to have work published by the Carnegie UK Trust, a fact which made the London newspaper headlines in 1920.

She was the first Irishwoman to write a symphony, a concerto and a ballet. Great strides have been made in recent years bringing her music to wider attention. Music scholars have transcribed and edited her unpublished manuscripts. Her work was a highlight of Composing the Island, the retrospective project looking back at a century of Irish music held at the National Concert Hall in 2016. Now a recording dedicated to her work and a study on her life and music from Cork University Press is shedding light on this neglected composer and prompting a revival of interest in her work.

In Ina Boyle — A Composer’s Life, musicologist Ita Beausang, gives a fascinating account of an elusive and intriguing figure in Irish cultural life. A picture emerges of a gentle somewhat eccentric woman who took an unconventional path in music-a sort of musical counterpart of Molly Keane. While shy and self-effacing, Boyle was nevertheless driven and resolute in efforts to hone her craft and promote her work. Born during the Victorian era and growing up in a remote Wicklow rectory, she composed steadfastly from childhood to old age through two world wars, the 1916 Rebellion and founding of the Irish Free State amassing a large body of work, much of it never performed.

Beausang writes in the preface: “Ina Boyle’s sheltered background in Eniskerry seems an unlikely environment for a composer. Her early musical influences came from a violin-making father and lessons with governesses.”

Among her first mentors, Boyle had a cousin who was married to the Armagh born composer Charles Wood and he took an interest in her early work tutoring her by correspondence.

Her first real success came when she entered Sligo Feis Ceoil in 1913. She entered two works and won first and second prize. The first prize was for the piece, Elegy for Cello and Orchestra. A century after it was written, a young Swiss cellist was sifting through the archives of music for cello written during the lifetime of Walton and Elgar, searching for a short piece to add to a recording of their concertos.

“When I finally came across Ina Boyle’s work, I felt immediately attracted to it. I was fascinated by her story,” says Beausang.

Having gained some recognition at home and in the UK, in 1922 Boyle wrote to Ralph Vaughan Williams and asked for lessons. For 16 years until the outbreak of World War, Boyle made the journey by steam ship regularly from Eniskerry to London to work on her compositions with the eminent British composer. Their correspondence detailed in the chapter ‘Lessons in London’ indicate a warm friendship between the Irish woman and RV Williams and his wife.

As well as coaching her in composition, Williams gave her advice on dealing with publishers and navigating the British music world. While she had some success, the bright future predicted for her never happened.

In 1936, Wlliams wrote to Boyle: “I think it is most courageous of you to go on with so little recognition. The only thing to say is that sometimes it does come finally.”

Back in Ireland, she had influential friends and supporters among the Irish scene including Brian Boydell and Aloys Fleischmann who included her work in their programmes for concerts and broadcasts on Radio Éireann. After 1950 there were few performances of her work until the BBC Ulster Orchestra programmed a couple of performances of her work with Cork violinist Catherine Leonard performing her violin concerto in 2010.

Beausang suggests that one of the main reasons why her work remains in obscurity is because so little of her work was published. “Existing only in manuscript form, it wasn’t easily accessible to performers and conductors.”

In this digital age, it is hard to put ourselves back in an era when manuscripts had to be painstakingly copied and imagine the effort and expense of delivering manuscripts into the hands of the right people. The book refers to many instances of Boyle sending manuscripts to conductors, and performers only to have them returned.”

Beausang details a particularly painful rejection. For her third symphony she set poems by Edith Sitwell. Unfortunately, permission was refused by the poet and the manuscript was returned unopened. It must have been infuriating for Boyle when Benjamin Britten went on to set one of Sitwell’s poems, with the poet attending the premiere.

The Second World War interrupted her career. It put an end to to Boyle’s travels to London. “When the war was over she was older and the demand for her music seems to have diminished,” says Beausang.

Her gender was definitely a factor. Publishers like Boosey and Hawkes were unlikely to consider publishing orchestral work by “a young lady, perhaps a few songs”, suggests Beausang. “Perhaps her themes were too sombre for a changing world in search of distraction.”

After the London years, she retreated to Bushy Park, the family home in Wicklow where she led a reclusive life, managing the homestead and caring dutifully for her father. Composer Nicola Lefanu often visited with her mother Elizabeth Maconchy, a close friend of Boyle’s. “We loved visiting Bushy Park. I remember staying there in the late 1950s and seeing the calendar on the wall was from 1933 because nothing changed in that house. It just gently subsided,” said Lefanu.

Undaunted by the lack of recognition, she never stopped composing. In February 1967 weeks before she died, she wrote to her friend Elizabeth Maconchy about her excitement in setting a “most striking old ballad”.

Is it time to rescue her music from oblivion? Beausang reminds us that her substantial archive awaits rediscovery and performance. An essay in the book by Seamus de Barra offers detailed analysis of the music. Perhaps Vaughan Williams’ prediction will prove to be accurate and her time finally will come.

Meticulously researched, this attractive volume is a fascinating account of an extraordinary life and will be a valuable resource for any performers undertaking a revival of the work of Ina Boyle.

Ina Boyle 1989-1967 A Composer’s Life, Ita Beausang and Seamus de Barra is published by Cork University Press.

Ina Boyle’s choral work, ‘The Transfiguration’ (1922), will be performed at the Three Choirs Festival, Hereford on August 1st and will be broadcast live by BBC Radio 3. www.inaboyle.org

'Ina Boyle' - CD Reviews

Two wonderful reviews of Ina Boyle's orchestral CD by the British Music Society and The Irish Catholic.

"The name of the Irish composer Ina Boyle will be unknown to many until now, but there is a renewed interest in her work, stimulated by the research of Ita Beausang and Séamus de Barra.  A new book on the composer by these writers has been published by Cork University, and will shortly be reviewed in a subsequent E-News.

This new CD provides a wide-ranging overview of her work, and she is well served by the performers here, since the playing is assured, sensitive, committed, and very well recorded.

This comment is particularly relevant as Boyle’s sound world is one of great beauty.  Her orchestral technique is solid and the music’s colours are subtle and imaginative.  Her Irishness is evident in a sort of post-Stanford sort of way (not that he was one of her teachers) with the contours and idioms of Irish folk music usually in the background.

She is one of those composers who continued to write quite lengthy and complex music without what one would have thought was the vital stimulation of live performances.  There were such. but only spasmodic and far between.  For instance, there was the disappointment of the BBC rehearsing her violin concerto in 1935 but not broadcasting it.

Her main teachers were C. H. Kitson and Percy Buck; Vaughan Williams gave her periodic help and advice, and approved of her music.

So – what of the music?  Well, it is definitely worth listening to, but no one going to claim she is a Bax or a Moeran.  The main issues are that her tonal palette is a little bland, and while at any given moment in the music sounds, well, lovely, she sometimes gives the impression of not quite knowing where she is going. 

For instance the Violin Concerto, an elegy for her mother is deeply felt, but the two slow first movements are too similar in mood.  Samuel Barber in his concerto took the same risk but his material is much stronger.

The best pieces on the disc are the Symphony and the Sea Poem.  The former has well contrasted movements and hangs together convincingly.  The surge of the ocean and the calls of the seabirds are most evocatively caught in the Sea Poem, thought the main idea needs more variety in its treatment, and tends to outstay its welcome".

GEOFFREY ATKINSON 

British Music Society

July 2018

“The CD comes on an English label – BBC/Dutton Epoch CDLX 7352 – and features the BBC Concert Orchestra, conducted by Ronald Corp. They offer a selection of Boyle’s works written between 1919 and 1934, including her Violin Concerto and 1st Symphony, subtitled Glencree (In the Wicklow Hills). The Concerto has New Zealand-born Benjamin Baker as its refined and sensitive soloist. Both works, and indeed the rest of the items on the disc, receive persuasive and sympathetic performances and convey the pastoral sentiment as well as the dramatic intensity running through the music.”

— Pat O'Kelly (The Irish Catholic)