John Ireland (composer)

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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.

[edit] Works

Alla marcia (organ)
Almond Tree (piano)
Aubade (piano)
April (piano)
Bagatelle
Ballad of London Nights (piano)
Ballade (piano)
Bed in Summer
Bells of San Marie
Benedictus in F
Berceuse
Boy Bishop, The (piano)
Brooks Equinox
Capriccio (organ)
Cavatina
Columbine (piano)
Comedy Overture
Communion service in C
Concertino pastorale
Concerto for Piano
Darkened Valley (piano)
Decorations (piano)
Downland Suite
During Music (song)
Elegiac Meditation
Elegiac Romance (organ)
Epic March
Equinox (piano)
Ex Ore Innocentium (voices and piano) "It is a thing most wonderful", (text: William Walsham How)
Fantasy Sonata (clarinet & piano)
February's Child (piano)
Forgotten Rite
Grecian Lad (piano)
Greater love hath no man (motet)
Greenways (piano)
Hawthorn Time (song)
Heart's Desire, The (song)
Hills, The (chorus a capella)
Holy Boy (cello & piano)
Holy Boy (organ)
Holy Boy (song)
Holy Boy (string orch)
Horn the Hornblower (song)
I have twelve oxen (song)
If there were dreams to sell (song)
If we must part (song)
In Those Days (piano)
Island Spell (piano)
Land of Lost Content (song cycle)
Leaves from a child's sketchbook (piano)
Legend (piano & orchestra)
London Overture
London Pieces (piano)
Love and Friendship (song)
Mai-Dun
Meditation on John Keble's Rogation Hymn (orchestra)
Meditation on John Keble's Rogation Hymn (organ)
Merry Andrew (piano)
Miniature Suite (organ)
Month's Mind (piano)
Mother & Child (song cycle)
My song is love unknown (hymn)
My true love hath my heart (song)
On a Birthday Morning (piano)
Orchestral Poem
Overlanders (film score)
Phantasie Trio
Poem (orchestral)
Prelude in E flat (piano)
Preludes (1913-5) (piano)
Puck's Birthday (piano)
Rhapsody (piano)
Salley Gardens (song)
Santa Chiara (song)
Sarnia (piano)
Satyricon - Overture
Scherzo & Cortege
Sea Fever (song)
Sea Idyll (piano)
Sextet
Solioquy (piano)
Sonata for cello & piano
Sonata for violin & piano No 1
Sonata for violin & piano No 2
Sonata in E (piano)
Sonatina (piano)
Songs (boxed set)
Song from o'er the hill
Songs of the Wayfarer (song cycle)
Songs Sacred and Profane (song cycle)
Spring sorrow (song)
Spring will not wait (piano)
Summer Evening (piano)
Sursum corda (organ)
Symphonic Rhapsody
Symphonic Studies
Te Deum in F
These things shall be
Thomas Hardy Songs
Three Pastels (piano)
Three Ravens (song)
Towing Path, The (piano)
Trellis, The (song)
Trio No 2 (violin, cello & piano)
Trio No 3 (violin, cello & piano)
Tritons
Tryst (in Fountain Court) (song)
Two pieces (1921) (piano)
Two Pieces (1924) (piano)
Two Symphonic Studies
Vagabond, The (song)
Vexilla Regis (hymn)
What art thou thinking of? (song)
When I am dead, my dearest (song)