Walter Keohler Beckett (27 July 1914 – 3 April 1996) was an Irish composer, teacher and music critic. He was a cousin of the writer

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...

Life

Beckett was born in

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

. His parents were Elizabeth Ethel Beckett (née Keller) and James Beckett, a politician and builder. He studied organ with George Hewson and harmony with John F. Larchet at the

Royal Irish Academy of Music Royal may refer to: People * Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name * A member of a royal family or royalty Places United States * Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Royal, Illinois, a village * Roy ...

(RIAM), in addition to music at

Trinity College Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Unive ...

where he was conferred with a Mus.D. (Doctor of Music) in 1942.Axel Klein: "Beckett, Walter", in: ''The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland'', edited by Harry White and Barra Boydell (Dublin: UCD Press, 2013). He lived from 1946 to 1963 in

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

, where he taught English and piano; he also wrote reviews from abroad for the ''

Irish Times ''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It was launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is Ireland's leading n ...

'' and made a series of orchestral arrangements of Irish traditional music for

Radio Éireann Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connected to ...

. In 1963 he moved to England, where he taught music at various schools before returning to Ireland in 1970 to succeed

A.J. Potter Archibald James Potter (22 September 1918 – 5 July 1980) was an Irish composer and teacher, who wrote hundreds of works including operas, a mass, and four ballets, as well as orchestral and chamber music. Early years Potter was born in Belfas ...

at the RIAM as a professor of harmony and counterpoint; however, after having suffered a stroke in 1985, he had to retire. In 1986 he was elected a member of

Aosdána Aosdána ( , ; from , 'people of the arts') is an Irish association or academy of artists, each of whom must have produced a distinguished body of work of genuine originality. It was created in 1981 by the country's Arts Council on the initiati ...

, and an Honorary Fellow of the RIAM in 1990. He died in Dublin in 1996.

Music

Beckett's more ambitious works from the 1940s and 1950s are a ''Suite for Orchestra'' (1945), ''Four Higgins Songs'' (1946), ''The Falaingin Dances'' (1958) and a ''Suite of Planxties'' (1960) for harp and orchestra. In the 1980s he produced a number of remarkable works such as the ''Quartet for Strings'' (1980) and ''Dublin Symphony'' (1989) for narrator, chamber choir and large orchestra. While Beckett was never a modernist, his later works nevertheless contained some advanced harmony, particularly in the quartet.

Writings on music

Besides his activity as a music critic for the ''Irish Times'', Beckett also wrote biographical articles for dictionaries, in particular for the first edition of ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart''. His books include studies on

Franz Liszt Franz Liszt (22 October 1811 – 31 July 1886) was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor and teacher of the Romantic music, Romantic period. With a diverse List of compositions by Franz Liszt, body of work spanning more than six ...

and ballet music: *''Liszt'' ("The Master Musicians" series) (London, 1956; revised edition, 1963) *''First Harmony Course'' (Dublin, 1976) *contributions to

Humphrey Searle Humphrey Searle (26 August 1915 – 12 May 1982) was an English composer and writer on music. His music combines aspects of late Romanticism and modernist serialism, particularly reminiscent of his primary influences, Franz Liszt, Arnold Sch ...

: ''Ballet Music: An Introduction'' (London, 1958; revised edition, 1973)

Compositions

Orchestral *''Suite for Orchestra'' (1945) *''Irish Suite'' (1952) *''The Enchanted Valley'' (1956) *''Irish Rhapsody'' (1957) *''The Falaingin Dances'' (1958) *''Suite of Planxties'' (1960) for harp and orchestra Other instrumental music *''Preludes'' (1942; rev. 1980) for piano *''Prelude'' (1960) for piano *''Quartet for Strings'' (1980) *''Occasional Voluntary'' (1985) for organ Vocal and choral *''Four Higgins Songs'' ( Frederick Robert Higgins) (1946), for tenor and small orchestra *''Ancient Irish Lullaby (Suantraí)'' (trad. words, English translations by

Gerald Griffin Gerald Griffin (; 12 December 1803 – 12 June 1840) was an Irish-born novelist, poet and playwright. His novel ''The Collegians'' was the basis of Dion Boucicault's play '' The Colleen Bawn''. Feeling he was "wasting his time" writing fiction ...

) (London, 1954), for female voices and piano *''An teicheadh go hÉigipt'' (anonymous) (1974), for soprano, mixed chorus and orchestra *''A dhroimín donn dílis'' (anonymous) (1974), for baritone and orchestra *''Goldenhair'' (James Joyce) (1980), song-cycle for low voice and piano *''Dublin Symphony'' (

Rhoda Coghill Rhoda Sinclair Coghill (14 October 1903 – 9 February 2000) was an Irish pianist, composer and poet. Biography Rhoda Coghill was born in Dublin and studied from the age of eight with Patricia Read at the Leinster School of Music. Between 1913 ...

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (born James Augusta Joyce; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influentia ...

) (1989), for narrator, mixed chorus and orchestra

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beckett, Walter 1914 births 1996 deaths 20th-century Irish classical composers 20th-century Irish male musicians Alumni of the Royal Irish Academy of Music Aosdána members Irish classical composers Irish male classical composers Irish music critics Composers from Dublin (city) 1940s in Irish music 1950s in Irish music 1960s in Irish music 1970s in Irish music 1980s in Irish music