Ina Boyle (8 March 1889 – 10 March 1967) was an Irish composer. Her compositions encompass a broad spectrum of genres and include choral, chamber and orchestral works as well as opera, ballet and vocal music. While a number of her works, including ''The Magic Harp'' (1919), ''Colin Clout'' (1921), ''Gaelic Hymns'' (1923–24), ''Glencree'' (1924-27) and ''Wildgeese'' (1942), received acknowledgement and first performances during her lifetime, the majority of her compositions remain unpublished and unperformed.

Biography

Boyle was born in Bushey Park near

Enniskerry Enniskerry (historically ''Annaskerry'', from ) is a village in County Wicklow, Ireland. The population was 1,889 at the 2016 census. Location The village is situated on the Glencullen River in the foothills of the Wicklow Mountains in the ea ...

, County Wicklow, and grew up in a restricted circle of her mother, father and sister. Her first music lessons were with her father William Foster Boyle (1860–1951), who was curate at St. Patrick's Church, Powerscourt and was given violin and cello lessons by her governess with her younger sister Phyllis. From the age of eleven, she studied theory and harmony with Samuel Myerscough, the English organist who founded the Leinster School of Music in 1904.Beausang, Ita: "An Irish composer and World War I"
''Enniskerry Local History Archives, enniskerryhistory.org''. From 1904 onwards, she also undertook lessons via correspondence with Charles Wood, who was married to Boyle's cousin Charlotte Georgina Wills-Sandford. From 1910 Boyle took lessons with Percy Buck who had just been appointed a non-resident professor of music at

Trinity College Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

. By 1913 she was studying counterpoint, harmony and composition with Charles Herbert Kitson and George Hewson in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

. Kitson encouraged her to compose the two anthems published in 1915, but his promise of a performance at Christ Church did not happen in the end. From 1923, Boyle began to travel to London to take lessons with Ralph Vaughan Williams. After exchanging correspondence, Boyle took her first composition lesson with Vaughan Williams at his home in February 1923. Boyle's music received a series of first performances during the 1920s and 1930s in England, but though well-received they were very infrequent. She gained some benefit from her involvement with a group of other young female composers including

Elisabeth Lutyens Agnes Elisabeth Lutyens, CBE (9 July 190614 April 1983) was an English composer. Early life and education Elisabeth Lutyens was born in London on 9 July 1906. She was one of the five children of Lady Emily Bulwer-Lytton (1874–1964), a me ...

Elizabeth Maconchy Dame Elizabeth Violet Maconchy LeFanu (; 19 March 1907 – 11 November 1994) was an Irish-English composer. She is considered to be one of the finest composers Great Britain and Ireland have produced. Biography Elizabeth Violet Maconchy was b ...

and

Grace Williams Grace Mary Williams (19 February 1906 – 10 February 1977) was a Welsh composer, generally regarded as Wales's most notable female composer, and the first British woman to score a feature film. Early life Williams was born in Barry, Vale ...

, who organised a concert series as performance opportunity. But the need to look after her family at home restricted her travelling, which mostly ceased altogether from the outset of war. Boyle continued to compose every day. Though isolated she nevertheless maintained contact with her peers and continually sent her scores to conductors and choir directors in the hope of further performances. In 1944 an orchestral concert devoted to her music was organised by Arthur Duff. However, with one exception (the brief orchestral overture ''Wildgeese'' of 1942), no new work of hers ever received a second performance. Ina Boyle died of cancer in

Greystones Greystones () is a coastal town and seaside resort in County Wicklow, Ireland. It lies on Ireland's east coast, south of Bray and south of Dublin city centre and has a population of 18,140 (2016). The town is bordered by the Irish Sea to ...

, County Wicklow.

Composition

Because of her isolation, Boyle's music was seldom performed. However, she continued to compose until her death. Early recognition came in 1913 when two of her works, the ''Elegy'' for cello and orchestra and a setting of

Walt Whitman Walter Whitman (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among ...

's ''The Last Invocation'', were awarded first and second prizes in the composers' competition at the Sligo Feis Ceoil. In 1919, her orchestral rhapsody ''The Magic Harp'' received a Carnegie Award, through which it was published and was taken up by the conductor

Dan Godfrey Sir Daniel Eyers "Dan" Godfrey (20 June 1868 – 20 July 1939) was a British music conductor and member of a musical dynasty that included his father Daniel Godfrey (1831–1903). His son, also Dan Godfrey, was also a musician, station man ...

in Bournemouth. The first of her three symphonies was composed between 1924 and 1927, but had to wait until 1945 for its first complete performance, at a Raidió Éireann studio concert. Subtitled ''Glencree'' ("In the Wicklow Hills"), the three movements take the form of tone poems describing specific locations: "On Lacken Hill", "Nightwinds in the Valley", and "Above Lough Bray". The second symphony (''The Dream of the Rood''), composed in 1930, received its world premiere on 30 September 2022 in Dublin, performed by the

RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra The National Symphony Orchestra (NSO; previously known as RTÉ Symphony Orchestra and the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra) is the largest professional orchestra in Ireland. Housed at the National Concert Hall, Dublin, since January 2022, it used ...

, conductor David Brophy. The brief, three-movement Violin Concerto of the early 1930s has (according to Rob Barnett) "more in common with '' The Lark Ascending'' than with the big British Isles statements by ( Bax,

Walton Walton may refer to: People * Walton (given name) * Walton (surname) * Susana, Lady Walton (1926–2010), Argentine writer Places Canada * Walton, Nova Scotia, a community ** Walton River (Nova Scotia) *Walton, Ontario, a hamlet United Kingdo ...

Dyson Dyson may refer to: * Dyson (surname), people with the surname Dyson * Dyson (company), a Singaporean multinational home appliances company founded by James Dyson * Dyson (crater), a crater on the Moon * Dyson (operating system), a Unix general-pur ...

, Creith and Moeran) of that decade".Boyle: Orchestral Works
''MusicWeb International, www.musicweb-international.com''. The Concerto was dedicated to Boyle's mother who had died in 1932. ''Lament for Bion'', a Greek-themed composition for tenor and strings she submitted to the Olympic Cultural Activities Committee, won an Olympic Honourable Mention in 1948 for Ireland. Her String Quartet in E minor (1934) was dedicated to Anne Macnaghten. A private recording was made by the Macnaghten Quartet, but the score remained in manuscript until a new edition was made in 2011, used for the first modern performance by the Callino Quartet on 4 February 2011. The ConTempo Quartet also performed the quartet in 2022. Boyle also wrote about 60 solo songs throughout her career, around half of which have now been recorded. The early choral work ''Soldiers at Peace'' (1916) has been revived by Highgate Choral Society and the

New London Orchestra The New London Orchestra began as a body of players regularly assembled by Ronald Corp to accompany concerts given by Highgate Choral Society, and was formally founded in 1988. It developed into an orchestra specialising in rarely heard late 19th ...

, directed by

Ronald Corp Ronald Geoffrey Corp, (born 4 January 1951) is a composer, conductor and Anglican priest. He is founder and artistic director of the New London Orchestra (NLO) and the New London Children's Choir. Corp is musical director of the London Chorus ...

, who performed it in London on 2 November, 2018. The world premiere of ''Cædmon's Hymn'' for six part choir, written in 1925, was given at the Ludlow Festival by the Carice Singers in April 2022.

Legacy

Boyle has been dubbed "the most prolific and significant female composer from Ireland before 1950". Her papers are archived in the Library of

.. Trinity College has digitised most of her music manuscripts, and they can be searched and studie
online
A feature-length documentary about the life and music of Ina Boyle titled ''From the Darkness'' was broadcast 12 June 2010 on Ireland's

RTÉ Lyric FM RTÉ Lyric FM (stylised as RTÉ lyric fm) is an Irish classical-music and arts radio station, owned and operated by RTÉ. The station, which is based in Limerick, was launched in 1999 and is available on FM throughout Ireland (in some areas ...

. In April and May 2013, an exhibition at Trinity College highlighted "Ina Boyle’s Symphonic Journey". A CD of some of her major orchestral works, including the first full recording of her Symphony No. 1 and first ever performance of the ''Psalm'' for cello and orchestra, was issued by Dutton in 2018.

Selected works

Choral music * ''Ireland'' (

), 1914 * ''Funeral Anthem'' (biblical); Stainer & Bell, 1915 * ''Wilt Not Thou, Oh God'' (biblical); Novello, 1915 * ''Soldiers at Peace'' ( Herbert Asquith) for chorus and orchestra (1916); London: Novello, 1917 * ''The Transfiguration'' (biblical) for tenor, mixed chorus and organ (1922); London: Novello, 1922 * ''Gaelic Hymns'' (from ''Carmina gadelica'', transl. by Alexander Carmichael) (1924); excerpts published London: J. & W. Chester, 1930 * ''Cædmon's Hymn'', for six part choir, transl. by L Magnus and C Headlam (1925) * ''Christ is a Path'' ( Giles and

Phineas Fletcher Phineas Fletcher (8 April 1582 – 13 December 1650) was an English poet, elder son of Dr Giles Fletcher, and brother of Giles the Younger. He was born at Cranbrook, Kent, and was baptized on 8 April 1582. Life He was admitted a scholar of E ...

), chamber cantata (1925) * ''A Spanish Pastoral'' (St. Teresa, transl. by Arthur Symons) for soprano and male choir (1931); London: Stainer & Bell, 1935 Orchestra * ''Elegy'' (1913), rhapsody for cello and orchestra * ''The Magic Harp'', orchestral rhapsody (1919); London: Stainer & Bell, 1922 * ''Colin Clout'', pastoral for orchestra (1921) * ''Phantasy'' for violin and chamber orchestra (1926) * ''Symphony No. 1: Glencree'' (1927) * ''Psalm'' for cello and orchestra (1927) * ''Symphony No. 2: The Dream of the Rood'' (1930) * ''Overture'' (1934) * Violin Concerto (1935) * ''Wildgeese'', sketch for small orchestra (1942) Solo voice with orchestra * ''Lament for Bion'' (attr.

Moschus Moschus ( el, Μόσχος), ancient Greek bucolic poet and student of the Alexandrian grammarian Aristarchus of Samothrace, was born at Syracuse and flourished about 150 BC. Aside from his poetry, he was known for his grammatical work, nothing o ...

) for tenor solo and strings (1945) * ''Still Falls the Rain'' (

Edith Sitwell Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell (7 September 1887 – 9 December 1964) was a British poet and critic and the eldest of the three literary Sitwells. She reacted badly to her eccentric, unloving parents and lived much of her life with her governess ...

) for alto and string orchestra (1948) * ''Symphony No. 3: From the Darkness'' (

) for contralto and orchestra (1951) * ''No Coward Soul is Mine'' ( Emily Brontë) for alto and string orchestra (1953) Songs (for voice and piano, if not otherwise mentioned) * ''The Joy of Earth'' (Æ = George Russell) (1914) * ''Have You News of My Boy Jack?'' (

Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. ...

) (1916) * ''A Song of Shadows, a Song of Enchantment'' (

Walter de la Mare Walter John de la Mare (; 25 April 1873 – 22 June 1956) was an English poet, short story writer, and novelist. He is probably best remembered for his works for children, for his poem "The Listeners", and for a highly acclaimed selection of ...

) (1922); London: Stainer & Bell, 1923, 1926 * ''If You Let Sorrow in on You'' ( Winifred M. Letts) (1922) * ''Sleep Song'' (''Déirín Dé'', tr. Pádraic Pearse) (1923) * ''A Mountain Woman'' (Padraic Pearse, tr.

Thomas MacDonagh Thomas Stanislaus MacDonagh ( ga, Tomás Anéislis Mac Donnchadha; 1 February 1878 – 3 May 1916) was an Irish political activist, poet, playwright, educationalist and revolutionary leader. He was one of the seven leaders of the Easter Rising ...

) (1927) * ''Five Sacred Folksongs of Sicily'' ( Grace Warrack) (1930) * ''Thinke then my Soul'' ( John Donne) for tenor and string quartet (1938); Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939 * ''Three Medieval Latin Lyrics'': "Sleep"; "Storm"; "Evening on the Moselle" (1955) * ''Three Songs by

Ben Jonson Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for t ...

'' for medium voice, violin, cello (1955) * ''Three Ancient Irish Poems'' (transl. by

Kuno Meyer Kuno Meyer (20 December 1858 – 11 October 1919) was a German scholar, distinguished in the field of Celtic philology and literature. His pro-German stance at the start of World War I in the United States was a source of controversy. His brother ...

) for soprano, viola, harp (1958) * ''Three Songs by

'': "Song of the Mad Prince"; "The Pigs and the Charcoal-Burner"; "Moon, Reeds, Rushes"; "Looking Back" (1956) Opera * ''Maudlin of Paplewick'' (after ''The Sad Shepherd'' by

), pastoral opera (1966) Ballet scores * ''Virgilian Suite'' (1931), ballet suite for small orchestra * ''The Dance of Death'' (1936), a masque for dancing * ''The Vision of Er'' (1939), a mimed drama or ballet Chamber music * String Quartet in E minor (1934)

Recordings

* ''The Magic Harp'', performed by Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Ronald Corp (cond.), on
Dutton Epoch CDLX 7276 (CD, 2011).
* ''The Wild Geese'', performed by European Union Youth Orchestra, Laurent Pillot (cond.), on: Classical Recording Company CRC 2309 (CD, 2013). * ''Sleep Song'' and ''Three Songs by Walter de la Mare'', performed by Aylish Kerrigan (mezzo) and Dearbhla Collins (piano), on

(CD, 2016). * ''Elegy'', performed b
Nadège Rochat (cello)
Staatskapelle Weimar, Paul Meyer (cond.), on
Ars Produktion ARS 38 221
(CD, 2017). * Orchestral works: Overture; Violin Concerto; Symphony No. 1 ''Glencree''; ''Wildgeese''; ''Psalm''; ''A Sea Poem''; ''Colin Clout'', performed by BBC Concert Orchestra, Benjamin Baker (violin), Nadège Rochat (cello), Ronald Corp (cond.), on
Dutton Epoch CDLX 7352 (CD, 2018)
* Songs: ''Since thou, o fondest and truest''; ''The Joy of Earth''; ''Three Songs by Walter de la Mare''; ''A Mountain Woman Asks for Quiet that her Child May Sleep''; ''Looking Back''; ''Himself and his Fiddle''; ''Have you News of my Boy, Jack?''; ''Roses''; ''A Soft Day''; ''Eternity''; ''Sleep Song''; ''All Souls' Flower''; ''Five Sacred Folksongs of Sicily''; ''A Song of Shadows''; ''A Song of Enchantment''; ''The Bringer of Dreams''; ''Longing''; ''Dust''; ''The Stolen Child''; ''Blessing''; ''They Went Forth''; ''Two Christmas Songs''; ''The Last Invocation''; performed by Paula Murrihy (mezzo), Robin Tritschler, (tenor), Ben McAteer (baritone), Iain Burnside (piano), on
Delphian DCD324264
(CD, 2021).

Bibliography

: ''Ina Boyle. An Appreciation with a Select List of Her Music'' (Dublin: Dolmen Press, 1974). * Sheila Powerscourt: "Powerscourt and Ina Boyle", in: S. Powerscourt: ''Sun too Fast'' (London: Bles, 1974), pp. 201–15. * Axel Klein: ''Die Musik Irlands im 20. Jahrhundert'' (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1996), pp. 174–6, 368–71. * Sonya Keogh: ''Ina Boyle. A Life and Work'' (MPhil,

University College Cork University College Cork – National University of Ireland, Cork (UCC) ( ga, Coláiste na hOllscoile Corcaigh) is a constituent university of the National University of Ireland, and located in Cork. The university was founded in 1845 as one ...

, 2002). * David Scott: ''Examining the Irish Art Song: Original Song Settings of Irish Texts by Irish Composers, 1900–1930'' (MPhil, DIT, 2018). * Ita Beausang, Séamas de Barra: ''Ina Boyle (1889–1967). A Composer's Life'' (Cork: Cork University Press, 2018); .

References

External links

*Profile a
Contemporary Music Centre, DublinIna Boyle research websiteConcerto for Violin and Orchestra (1935) by Ina Boyle from YouTube
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boyle, Ina 1889 births 1967 deaths 20th-century classical composers 20th-century Irish musicians 20th-century Irish women 20th-century Irish women musicians 20th-century women composers Deaths from cancer in the Republic of Ireland Women classical composers Irish classical composers Irish women classical composers Irish opera composers Musicians from County Wicklow Olympic competitors in art competitions People from Greystones Pupils of Ralph Vaughan Williams