Digging Up Old Scores – An Irishman’s Diary on music in Ireland since 1916

I’m amused to see that the National Concert Hall’s “Composing the Island” season, an epic series of shows celebrating a century of Irish music since 1916, is sponsored by Bord na Móna. After all, that company’s remit has traditionally had more to do with decomposing the island, or at any rate, with harvesting the results of its decomposition.

Still, turf-cutters have also been responsible for unearthing several ancient but well-preserved former residents of Ireland, now on display at the National Museum. So they may be an apt enough partner for an undertaking that involves digging up 100 years of Irish classical music, much of it forgotten and in uncertain condition.

At the season’s launch on Wednesday, Bord na Móna chairman John Horgan joked that the process might involve settling “old scores”. Indeed. But it struck me during the opening night that Irish classical music, like the traditional tunes it often draws on, had a big advantage when negotiating the political and sectarian minefields of the 20th century. Namely that, beyond their titles, the tunes were usually not required to have words.

Consider the piece with which the season opened – Charles Villiers Stanford's Irish Rhapsody No 4, subtitled, The Fisherman of Lough Neagh and What He Saw. This was inspired by three northern folk airs, so that it's sometimes called the Ulster Rhapsody. And listening with the subtitle in mind, I found myself trying to see whatever it was the fisherman was seeing.

But apart from a morning mist on the lake, recreated by the orchestra’s string and horn sections, I couldn’t make out anything.

Even when the mist cleared, in part two, the piece just turned vaguely ominous, via a marching theme (a coming storm, maybe?).

Then it settled down again in the last part, based on a tune called The Death of General Wolfe.

As to the fisherman's vision, I was no wiser until I read that the Dublin-born Stanford was a unionist who backed Ulster's stance against Home Rule. If his Rhapsody had words, they would have been fighting talk. It premiered in 1914.

Stanford did of course sometimes also write song settings, which came with lyrics, but those tended to be apolitical. In fact, as the season sponsors are surely aware, one of his best-known songs was A Fire of Turf, based on a poem by the English-born, Irish-resident Winifred Letts.

But I'm surprised to see that A Fire of Turf will not be among the works performed this month – not even in tonight's concert, which is devoted to folk songs, including Stanford's. Maybe it's because, as Horgan's programme notes explain, Bord na Móna is phasing out peat extraction in favour of "renewables".

Getting back to the post-revolutionary minefield, the season also features (this Saturday lunchtime) a concert devoted to army music. It begins with a march by Col Fritz Brase, a German composer and conductor – in fact the most eminent German military musician of his era – who nevertheless accepted an invitation to set up Ireland’s Army School of Music in 1923.

Like a good bandmaster, he did it in quick time. The Army No 1 Band made its debut in October 1923. And then as now, the programme started with the piece Col Brase had named for his patron, the Army chief of staff. His General Mulcahy March was received with "unbounded enthusiasm", according to reviews. Perhaps there were no anti-Treatyites in the audience.

Tomorrow's concert also includes TC Kelly's A Wexford Rhapsody (1954), which although equally wordless, could be a riposte to Stanford's Lough Neagh. It too uses three traditional airs, but in Kelly's case, they were Boolavogue, Kelly the Boy from Killane, and The Croppy Boy. Clearly, the two composers marched (or, in turf terms, dug) with different feet.

Of secondary importance for most of the month, lyricists will, however, get the last word, or nearly. Kelly features again on September 23rd, as part of a concert on the "Irish Song-book". And among his contributions then will be one called The Mother, which is still more famous for its text than the music, he added.

The author was one Patrick Pearse, imagining his mother’s grief and pride after her sons die for Ireland. Given this, in the run-up to the Rising’s 50th anniversary, Kelly’s setting was considered “inflammatory” by RTÉ and banned.

But it’s not inflammatory now, even with Bord na Móna involved. Backed by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, it will be sung by Rachel Kelly, granddaughter of TC.