Charles Villiers Stanford - Irish Rhapsody No. 1, Op. 78 (1902)

Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (30 September 1852 – 29 March 1924) was an Irish composer, music teacher, and conductor. Born to a well-off and highly musical family in Dublin, Stanford was educated at the University of Cambridge before studying music in Leipzig and Berlin. He was instrumental in raising the status of the Cambridge University Musical Society, attracting international stars to perform with it.

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Irish Rhapsody No. 1, Op. 78 (1902)

Ulster Orchestra conducted by Vernon Handley

Stanford composed six Irish Rhapsodies for orchestra. The third and sixth have cello and violin solos respectively, while the other four were composed for orchestra alone. The Irish Rhapsody No. 1 in D minor, Op. 78 was composed in 1902 for the Norwich Festival and was inspired, according to the composer, by the ancient Irish legend of the love between Cuchullin and his wife Emer. The work was dedicated to Stanford’s friend, Hans Richter (1843-1916), the conductor of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester. The composition received its premiere in Norwich on 23 October 1902 and was one of the most often performed of Stanford’s works, a fact that the composer was said to have regretted in later life.
The single-movement work takes as its thematic material two traditional Irish folksongs, Leatherbags Donnell and Emer’s Farewell to Cuchullin (also known as Londonderry Air or more familiarly as Danny Boy). The work is structured in tripartite form (Allegro molto-Adagio-Allegro) with a coda. Compositionally speaking, the work is less rhapsodic than variational in form. Stanford explores his two major themes in both augmentation and diminution, and in the final section combines both themes and presents them in fragments in a more sonata form-like developmental mode. From a purely architectonic standpoint, the Rhapsody can be best described as a large-scale late Romantic symphonic movement in extended sonata form. Stylistically, the work can be seen to be very much in synch with similar compositions by Antonín Dvorák (1841-1904), Johannes Brahms (1833-97) and Robert Schumann.
Stanford himself conducted a recording of the Rhapsody in 1916. In 1974 the first part of the recording was released on LP by Pearl Records. To date, the recording has not been re-released on CD, and it is believed that some of the original master discs from the recording session are now lost.
William Grim, 2004.

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