大象传媒

How has Irish classical music evolved and is there such a thing as a distinctive Irish sound? Irish classical composers and performers are often absorbed into the international scene unrecognised. And yet, just as literature from the island of Ireland is recognised as different to other writing in English, should classical music with its roots on the island also be seen as unique? In this series Roisin Ni Dhuill, who grew up immersed in both the classical and folk traditions of Ireland, sets out to answer these questions.

In this first programme she starts in the nineteenth century, a time of great strife and poverty in Ireland, when composers and musicians mainly travelled abroad. But as we'll hear, they and their music often carried a yearning for home. There will be music by John Field, credited with inventing the nocturne and influencing Chopin; songs from Charles Villiers Stanford and William Vincent Wallace alongside the traditional Irish airs that inspired them as well as less famous music from Philip Cogan and George Alexander Osborne. Some of these achieved great fame abroad but does that make them less Irish? If it does, how should we place the composers who lived in and were deeply inspired by Ireland, like Arnold Bax or Michele Esposito?