JOHN IRELAND (COMPOSER)

'John Nicholson Ireland' (13 August 1879 – 12 June 1962) was an English composer.
Ireland was born in Bowdon, near Altrincham, Manchester, into a family of Scottish descent and some cultural distinction. His parents died soon after he had entered the Royal College of Music at the age of 14. He studied piano and organ there, and later composition under Charles Villiers Stanford. He subsequently became a teacher at the College himself, his pupils including Ernest John Moeran (who admired him) and Benjamin Britten (who found Ireland’s teaching of less interest). He was sub organist at Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Street, London SW1, and later became organist and choirmaster at St. Luke’s Church, Chelsea, London. Ireland frequently visited the Channel Islands and was inspired by their landscape; he was evacuated from them just before the German invasion during World War II. Ireland retired in 1953, settling at the small hamlet of Rock in Sussex for the rest of his life. He is buried in nearby Shipley churchyard.
From Stanford, Ireland inherited a thorough knowledge of the music of Beethoven, Brahms and other German classics, but as a young man he was also strongly influenced by Debussy and Ravel as well as the earlier works by Stravinsky and Bartók. From these influences, he developed his own brand of "English Impressionism", related closer to French and Russian models than to the folk-song style then prevailing in English music.
Like most other Impressionist composers, Ireland favoured small forms and wrote neither symphonies nor operas, although his ''Piano Concerto'' is among his best works. His output includes some chamber music and a substantial body of piano works, including his best-known piece ''The Holy Boy'', known in numerous arrangements. His songs to poems by A. E. Housman, Thomas Hardy, Christina Rossetti, John Masefield and Rupert Brooke are a valuable addition to English vocal repertoire. Due to his job at St. Luke’s Church, he also wrote hymns, carols and other sacred choral music; among choirs he is probably best known for the anthem ''Greater Love'', often sung in services that commemorate the victims of war. His Communion Service in C is also performed. Some of his pieces, such as the popular ''A Downland Suite'', were completed or re-transcribed after his death by his student Geoffrey Bush.

Contents

Works

Chamber Works

Church music

Film Score

Orchestra

Organ

Piano

Piano and Orchestra

Songs

Other (unclassified)

External link

Works

Chamber Works

★ Fantasy Sonata (clarinet & piano)

★ Holy Boy (cello & piano)

★ Sonata for cello & piano

★ Sonata for violin & piano No 1

★ Sonata for violin & piano No 2

★ Phantasie Trio

★ Sextet

★ Trio No 2 (violin, cello & piano)

★ Trio No 3 (violin, cello & piano)

Church music

★ Benedictus in F

★ Communion service in C

★ Greater love hath no man (motet)

★ Hills, The (chorus a capella)

★ My song is love unknown (hymn)

★ Te Deum in F

★ Vexilla Regis (hymn)

Film Score

★ ''The Overlanders''

Orchestra

★ Comedy Overture

★ Downland Suite

★ Epic March

★ Holy Boy (string orch)

★ London Overture

★ Mai-Dun

★ Meditation on John Keble's Rogation Hymn

★ Poem

★ Satyricon - Overture

★ Symphonic Rhapsody

★ Symphonic Studies

★ Two Symphonic Studies

Organ

★ Alla marcia

★ Capriccio

★ Elegiac Romance

★ Holy Boy

★ Meditation on John Keble's Rogation Hymn

★ Miniature Suite

★ Sursum corda

Piano

★ Almond Tree

★ Aubade

★ April

★ Ballad of London Nights

★ Ballade

★ The Boy Bishop

★ Columbine

★ Darkened Valley

★ Decorations

★ Equinox

★ February's Child

★ Grecian Lad

★ Greenways

★ In Those Days

★ Island Spell

★ Leaves from a child's sketchbook

★ London Pieces

★ Merry Andrew

★ Month's Mind

★ On a Birthday Morning

★ Prelude in E flat

★ Preludes (1913-5)

★ Puck's Birthday

★ Rhapsody

★ Sarnia

★ Sea Idyll

★ Soliloquy

★ Sonata in E

★ Sonatina

★ Spring will not wait

★ Summer Evening

★ Three Pastels

★ Towing Path, The

★ Two pieces (1921)

★ Two Pieces (1924)

Piano and Orchestra

★ Concerto

★ Legend

Songs

★ During Music

★ Ex Ore Innocentium (voices and piano) "It is a thing most wonderful", (text: William Walsham How)

★ Hawthorn Time

★ Heart's Desire, The

★ Holy Boy

★ Horn the Hornblower

★ I have twelve oxen

★ If there were dreams to sell

★ If we must part

★ Land of Lost Content (song cycle)

★ Love and Friendship

★ Mother & Child (song cycle)

★ My true love hath my heart

★ Salley Gardens

★ Santa Chiara

★ Sea Fever

★ Song from o'er the hill

★ Songs of the Wayfarer (song cycle)

★ Songs Sacred and Profane (song cycle)

★ Spring sorrow

★ Thomas Hardy Songs

★ Three Ravens

★ Trellis, The

★ Tryst (in Fountain Court)

★ Vagabond, The

★ What art thou thinking of?

★ When I am dead, my dearest

Other (unclassified)

★ Bagatelle

★ Bed in Summer

★ Bells of San Marie

★ Berceuse

★ Brooks Equinox

★ Cavatina

★ Concertino Pastorale

★ Elegiac Meditation

★ The Forgotten Rite

★ Scherzo & Cortege

★ These things shall be

★ Tritons

External link

★ The John Ireland Trust

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