Music’s Debt to Ireland

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 6, 8 February 1923, Page 9

Music’s Debt to Ireland

(By Myles Murphy, in America.)

The destruction of countless manuscripts by the Norsemen, in their raids on the churches and monasteries of Ireland, .and later by the Anglo-Normans, has deprived us of much valuable data on the subject of Irish musical art, as well as other historical matters. Despite this loss we are still in possession of sufficient historical facts to establish the value of the achievements of the early musicians of the Green Isle.

That the Irish bards had a complete system of musical notation previous to the coming of St. Patrick historians agree. Some authorities, among them Dr. William H. Cummings, one of the most eminent of English musicians, declare that the bards had the diatonic scale as we have it today. Father Bewerunge, professor of musical chant in Maynooth College, insists that the Irish melodies belong to a stage of musical development very much anterior to that of the Gregorian chant. He claims that being based fundamentally on a pentatonic scale, they reach back to a period altogether previous to the dawn of musical history.

The first Irish Churchman to achieve distinction outside of his own country was, perhaps, Sedulius, poet, theologian, and musician, who flourished in Rome in the fifth century. His “Carmen Paschale” has been called the first great Christian epic worthy of the name. Dr. Grattan Flood, in his History of Irish Music, says:

“From a musical point of view the beautiful Introit of the Mass of the Blessed Virgin, “Salve sancta parens cnixu puerpera reycjn” which is still sung throughout the Western Church, is the most glowing tribute to the estimation in which this worthy Irishman’s compositions were held by the compilers of the Homan. Missal and Gradual. Again in the Roman Liturgy we find our Irish composer’s abcediren hymn commencing, ‘A Solis art us cardiac, 3 and as Dr. Healy writes: ‘Several other expressions in the Divine Office, are borrowed from the Carmen raschalc of Sedulius.”

Irish monks gave Germany its first lessons in music, as musical science was utterly unknown in that country until the founding of the monastery of St. Gall in the year 612 by the Irish saint, Cellach, whose name has been Latinized Gallus or Gall. Cellach came from the college at Bangor, Co. Down, and was the friend and disciple of St. Columbanus, the founder of the monastery at Bobbio, Italy. During Cellach’s lifetime the monastery of St. Gall became famous for its music, and later on, at the end of the eighth century, Pope Adrian sent two famous Roman singers, Peter and Romanus, the authors of tho Romanian notation, to the Irish monastery at St. Gall to obtain a faithful copy of the Gregorian antiphonarium. Moengal, an Irish monk,

was made head master of the music school at St. Gall in the year 870, and under his rule it became “the wonder and delight of Europe.” The copying of music became such a feature of the work done at St. Gall that the scribes of the monastery provided all Germany with manuscript books of Gregorian chant, every one of the books being beautifully illuminated. At Mbengal’s death he was succeeded by his Irish disciple, Tutilo, who became even more famous than his master.

About the year 053, St. Gertrude of Brabant, abbess of Nivelle, in Brabant, sent for two brother’s, St. Foillau and St. Ultan, to teach psalmody to her nuns. The two Irish monks complied with her request- and built an adjoining monastery at Fosse, near Liege. Wherever the Irish monks went they brought the science of music with them, and all northern Europe must acknowledge its indebtedness to them. In writing of the early Irish ecclesiastics the learned Kessel has this to say ; “Every province in Germany proclaims this race as its benefactor. Austria celebrates St. Column, St. Virgilius, St. Modestus, and others. To whom but the ancient Scots (Irish) was - due the famous “Schottenkloster” of Vienna? Salzburg, Ratisbon, and all Bavaria honor St. Virgilius as their apostle. Burgundy, Alsace, Helvetia, Suevia with one voice proclaim the glory of Columbanus, Gall, Fridolin, Arbogast, Florentius, Trudpert, who first preached the true religion amongst them. Who were the founders of the monasteries of St. Thomas at Strasburg and of St. Nicholas at Memmigen but these same Scots? The Saxons and the tribes of northern Germany are indebted to them to an extent that may be Judged by the fact that the first ten bishops who occupied the See of Verden belonged to that race.” &

The first to introduce the Roman chant in Cologne was the Irish St. Helias, a native of the Co. Monaghan, who was elected Abbot of Cologne in 1015. It was to him that Berno of Reichenau dedicated his celebrated work, The Laws of Symphony and Tone. ’

Co. Louth furnished one of the greatest musical theorists of the 13th century, John Garland. Being unable to find competent instructors at home, Garland went to France and studied in Paris. His ability was so marked that ho was offered and accepted a. position as instructor in the University of Toulouse, where he wrote his famous treatise on He Musico visit rah Hi Vositio. The street in Paris in which ho taught was named in his honor, the Cl os de Garland.” , Lionel Power, a native of Waterford, is credited with’ having written the first treatise on music in the English language. His work is still preserved among the Lansdowne manuscripts in the British Museum. Power established the use of sixths and thirds, prohibited consecutive unisons, fifths, and octaves, and was the inventor of figured bass. Many of his compositions are still extant. His treatise was written about the year 1390. The first musical treatise printed in English was from the pen of William Bathe, of Drumcondra, Dublin. It was published in 1584. Bathe became a Jesuit priest and went to Spam, where at the time of his death in 1614 he was chaplain of the Spanish Court at Madrid and esteemed as one of the most learned men of his day. Hie musical glasses are the invention of Richard Poeknch’ a, native of the Co. Monaghan. Poekrich was born m 1/41. As a performer on the glasses he achieved quite a. reputation in the theatres of England and Ireland. One of the greatest violinists in the middle of the 18th century was John Clegg, born in Dublin in 1714. Another celebrated Irish musician of this period was the Abbe Henry Madden of the Eyrecourt Co. Galway family. He was'successively chapel master of Tours Cathedral (1725), then to the Ring of Franco in 1737, and finally of the Chapel Royal Versailles, in 1744. He died at Versailles in 1748 The father of the Duke of Wellington, Garret Wesley was a musical prodigy as a boy. In 1757 he founded the Academy of Music, Dublin. This body was the first to introduce ladies in the chorus. Wesley, or Lord Mornington, as he afterwards became, was the first Professor of Music in Trinity College. A fine edition of Lord Mornington s glees and madrigals Was edited by Sir Henry Bishop, in 1846. *

The earliest book on church plain chant was printed and published by an Irishman, John F. Coghlan, in 1782.

John Field, born in Dublin, July 26, 1782, was a marvellous boy pianist. His father took him to London, where he appeared with great success. He was the inventor of the musical form known as the nocturne. His teacher, dementi, took him on a concert tour through Europe, where he was covered with honors. Field finally settled in Russia, where he became the fashionable music teacher for many years. He died in Moscow, leaving a son, a splendid opera tenor, but of whom there is little record.

The Irish musicians of later days are so well known that it is unnecessary to devote much space to them. We have only to mention William Michael O’Rourke, who changed his name to Rooke, the instructor of Balfe and a famous composer himself; John Augustus Wade, also a pupil of O’Rourke, and the composer of several operas; Michael Kelly, historian, singer, and composer; Michael William Balfe; William Vincent Wallace; George Alexander, of Limerick; Sir Robert Prescott Stewart Augusta Holmes, born in Paris of Irish parents, and famous both as a pianist and composer; Charles Villiers Stanford; Hamilton Harty; Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore; the great O’Carolan, and many others, to show what an interesting history of Irish musical celebrities might be compiled to the advantage of their native land and to the credit of the race from which they sprang.