ABSTRACT
The death of the composer John Ireland in 1962 at the age of 82 prompted a wave of tributes, which alluded mainly to his gift for writing for the piano, his love of nature and his rigorous craftsmanship. It is evident from these obituaries that it is difficult to place Ireland. Though not bom early enough to be part o f the fabric of the British Musical Renaissance, he did not belong to a modernist generation. He was himself aware of this problem of ‘belonging’, writing in 1925: ‘People of the older school regard me as a revolutionary, while the rising generation look on me as an old fogey, so one pleases nobody but oneself (El: 11 April 1925). Several of the obituaries commented on this, The Times noting that he ‘never went out of his way to court popularity’ and ‘held himself apart from the English musical renaissance’ (The Times, 13 June 1962: 12). The Manchester Guardian described him as ‘a composer moreover of highly independent mind’ {Manchester Guardian, 13 June 1962: 2). A few years later, writing in 1969, William Mann, at that time music critic for The Times, made similar observations on Ireland’s separateness:
(Mann, 1969: 9) Ireland’s music is highly personal, both because it is nearly always tied to a specific event or place or person in his life, but also because of its individual musical qualities. His music is an expression of a state of mind. There is a sombre side and a rapturous side, intensity and utter gaiety: he could produce lightweight, charming pieces, but also music that was darkly oppressive. ‘His music was never written in any sense for the big battalions and will remain the preserve of the poetically-inclined’ {Daily Telegraph, 13 June 1962).
