Boydell, Brian (Patrick)

Boydell, Brian (Patrick), Irish composer and teacher; b. Dublin, March 17, 1917. He studied at the Evangelical Church Music Inst. of the Univ. of Heidelberg, with Hadley and Howells at the Royal Coll. of Music in London (1938–39), at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin, and at the Univ. of Dublin (Mus.D., 1959). From 1962 to 1982 he was prof, of music at the Univ. of Dublin. He was made a Commendatore della Repubblica Italiana for his services to Italian Renaissance music (1983), was awarded an honorary D.Mus. of the National Univ. of Ireland, and was made a member of Aosdána for general contributions to the creative arts in Ireland. He publ. A Dublin Musical Calendar 1700–1760 (1988) and Rotunda Music in Eighteenth–Century Dublin (1992). His music reveals an assured command of traditional compositional techniques.

Works

orch.:Sym. for Strings (1945); 5 Joyce Songs (1946); In Memoriam Mahatma Gandhi (1948); Violin Concerto (1953); The Wooing ofEtain, 2 suites (1954); Elegy and Capriccio for Clarinet and Strings (1955); Megalithic Ritual Dances (1956); Meditation and Fugue (1956); Ceol Cas Corach (1958); Shielmartin Suite (1958); Richard’s Riot (1961); Symphonic Inscapes (1968); Jubilee Music (1976); Partita Concertante for Violin, Harp, and Orch. (1978); A Wild Dance for Ceól Chumann na nóg (1982); Masai Mara (1988). chamber: Oboe Quintet (1940); String Trio (1944); Cello Sonata (1945); 3 string quartets (1950, 1957, 1969); Quintet for Flute, Harp, and String Trio (1960); 4 Sketches for 2 Irish Harps (1962); A Pack of Fancies for a Travelling Harper (1970); 5 Mosaics for Violin and Piano or Harp (1972); 5 Blows for Brass Quintet (1984); An Album of Pieces for the Irish Harp (1989); Adagio and Scherzo for String Quartet (1991); Viking-Lip-Music for 11 Brasses and 2 Percussionists (1996). keyboard: Many piano pieces. vocal:An Easter Carol for Chorus (1940); Shatter Me, Music for Chorus (1952); The Deer’s Cry for Baritone and Orch. (1957); Noël for Chorus and Orch. (1960); Mors et vita for Soloists, Chorus, and Orch. (1960–61); A TerribleBeauty is Born for Narrator, Soloists, Chorus, and Orch. (1965); 4 Yeats Poems for Soprano and Orch. (1965); Mouth Music for Chorus (1974); The Small Bell, cantata (1980); The Carlow Cantata or The Female Friend (1985); Under No Circumstances: An Historical Entertainment for 2 Soloists, Narrator, Chorus, and Orch. (1987; Dublin, March 10, 1988); songs.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire