Ina Boyle: Concerto for violin and orchestra (1932-33, rev. 1935)
Selina (Ina) Boyle
born 8 March 1889 in Bushey Park near Enniskerry, County Wicklow, Ireland
died 10 March 1967 in Greystones, County Wicklow, Ireland
Composition of the Violin Concerto:
1932-33, rev. 1935
Recordings:
Catherine Leonard, 2010 (can be heard on youtube).
Benjamin Baker, 2017 (on CD)
Ina Boyle's Violin Concerto (1935) is in the romantic-late romantic tradition of Max Bruch's 1st Violin Concerto (1965-67) and Ralph Vaughan Williams' Romance for Violin and Orchestra "The
Lark Ascending" from 1914-21. Rhapsodic violin solos alternate with romantic nature melodies reminiscent of choral songs. Ralph Vaughen Williams was Ina Boyle's composition teacher for many
years, to whom she travelled from Ireland to London again and again to study music. She composed in a wide variety of genres (orchestral music, choral works, chamber music, opera, ballets and
songs), yet her works were rarely performed. This was not because of the quality of the music - as is now recognised - but because she lived in isolation in her native County Wicklow (Ireland)
away from the dominant London music scene to look after family and her mother. After World War 2 she was forgotten, only recently has her work been republished and performed here and there.
Perhaps the foresight of Ralph Vaughem Williams has yet to be proven. In 1936 Wlliams wrote to Boyle: "I think it is very brave of you to go on with so little recognition. The only thing I can
say is that sometimes it does come eventually."
Ina Boyle dedicated the violin concerto to the memory of her late mother. As early as 1928, she had composed a Christmas carol for her mother entitled "All Souls Flower", which speaks of a
flower planted by no mortal hand that grows for the benefit of our souls. In the third part of her relatively short one-movement, but formally three-part violin concerto, she quotes this melody
as a memory of her mother.
The BBC Orchestra and violinist André Mangeot rehearsed the concerto in 1935, but it was not included in the radio programme, to Ina Boyle's disappointment.
Listen here!
Listening Companion:
I. Lento, ma non troppo
In solemn A major, strings and wind choir, supported by soft timpani and trombones, begin a chorale melody. Into its resonance, the violin begins a rhapsodic recitative, first descending from a high trill, then reaching the highest pitch again in unusual steps. The wind chorale is repeated and, moved, the violin answers again with a grand gesture and in a free sequence of notes, as if it wanted to tell us about itself. The orchestra joins in again, and together the orchestra and the increasingly passionate violin strive towards a first climax. The orchestra continues solemnly until the violin, in the highest register, quietly takes over the four-note opening motif of the chorale melody, but continues its narrative attitude. Carried by the orchestra, the violin asserts its individuality until the orchestra energetically pushes through the four-tone motif in a violent outburst. Finally, the violin adapts its rhapsodic interjections to the simple harmonic striding of the orchestra. The four-tone motif wanders forward in varied form through orchestral and solo voices, reaching a kind of calmed recapitulation of the full solemn chorale melody of the beginning. The solo violin again responds twice in rhapsodic recitative, but now signalling assent. There is a transfigured singing out, the violin walks along and floats away into the highest registers, the progress of the orchestra and the violin in double stops intermingle. Slowly, the music in A major fades away.
II. Adagio
This is immediately followed by an Adagio solo by the violin beginning on the low A, quietly musing to itself, at first accompanied discreetly only by the strings. A bright wind choir then joins in twice with a bright descending motif. The far-reaching violin meditation is soon joined by a flute solo in counterpoint. The violin rises higher and higher with its romantically infinite melody, the wind choir varies its harmonies, everything flows meditatively, a horn raises its voice towards the end, the violin repeats its ascent over several registers several times and passionately increases its singing, at the end a chain of trills leads energetically and upwards directly to the final dance.
III. Allegro, ma non troppo
A dance theme is immediately given by the violin. The orchestra accompanies rhythmically, reinforces the momentum of this music and then takes over the dance melody in the full orchestra. After a brief lull in the orchestra, the flute and clarinet in unison, accompanied only by virtuosic hurried figurations of the violin, sound the gently swaying Christmas Carol theme "All Souls' Flower". Horn sound joins in. The comforting melody spreads out, the strings take over the song consecrated to a blossoming flower and everything dies away with the sound of the horn. Then the orchestra interrupts this consoling memory of Boyle's deceased mother with the dance-like theme of the beginning and leads the movement to a resting point, which opens the opportunity for the violin to switch once more to reflective memory and to continue singing the Christmas Carol. Together with a lonely clarinet, it begins tranquillo a wide-spreading zwiegesang. An oboe and a flute join in, and finally a horn joins in, before the dance-like theme, slightly altered, interferes again. A horn violently opposes any possible exuberance, as if to exhort the violin to renewed contemplation. The violin's new entry is entitled "Flower of grace" in the score, and it immediately leads to a short cadenza by the violin. Slowly, the violin solo ascends, as it were, to heavenly heights and descends again in a wide arc "gracefully" and fades away quietly before the orchestra, reconciled, once again enters with the rhythmic bars of the dance-like theme. This is followed by an almost solemn, but short, upwardly open finale in A major.