‘Seen and Not Heard’
Women and Music in Ireland
ed Jennifer O’Connor-Madsen, Laura Watson and Ita Beausang (The Boydell
Press, 2022)
Women in Music covers the transition from Church related and drawing-room performer-composers to the concert-hall. It had a relatively closed repertoire of the truly great from Bach to Shostakovich. This persists to today and still limits women to the margins or tokenism. Women as muses persisted throughout the ages but their reputation as serious artists in their own right has been an uphill struggle. Careers fell by the wayside and these are chronicled in graphic detail in this book with a string of extraordinary examples.
Women in the late 19th century tended to migrate to Paris. They were more exotic there than in London. In addition, Irish music had a vogue there which took off with Moore’s melodies. Joanne Burn’s chapter on this development is full of surprises. Not least J.J Rousseau’s obsession with Moore. The great philosopher was a composer of the King’s music. In order to make a living he wrote songs and one-act operas. His fame now rests with his social and educational theories but Irish music in France and Germany owes much to his championing.
Eamon Maher’s chapter on Kate O’Brian’s novel Music and Splendour high-lights her education in music by the French nuns in Laurel Hill. Indeed, the French connection runs through the volume. However, the understanding of Irish music in France was essentially romantic. Ravel and other composers in the early 20th century saw Ireland as a magical island rather than a real place. One of the most popular songs in France is ‘Connemara’. Recordings of by famous singers come out regularly. It could be about Breton with wider landscapes.
But Irish music in France is taken very seriously and composers from O Carolan to Stanford feature regularly in France Musique radio, often in tandem with Beethoven’s not very Irish songs. Hardly a week passes without recordings of Irish composers and folk music. Women are not excluded. Last year a full-length programme on Ina Boyle was broadcast at prime time.
I’m sure Women and Music will inspire a compact disc of near forgotten women composers. For example, Joan Trimble, Mary Dickenson-Auner, Alicia Needham and Rhoda Coghill (remembered only as RTE’s accompanist). They cry out to be heard.