Life
1917-2000; b. 17 March; son of an Irish malter; ed. Dragon School, Oxford,
and Rugby College (Public School), 1930; spent summer of 1935 in Heidelberg;
heard Wagner’s Ring Cycle and other masterpieces; Choral Scholar,
Clare College, Cambridge; grad. Natural Science (1stClass), 1938; returned
to Dublin, 1939; grad. TCD, Mus.B., 1942; conductor of Dublin Orchestra
Players, 1942-67; m. Mary Jones, Professor of Singing at Royal Irish Academy
of Music, 1944; LRIAM, 1941; engaged in translating European tradition
into Irish context, with Aloys Fleischmann and Frederick May; believed
in Sibelius’s dictum that national identity in music does not depend
on the use of folk-song; String Quartet, No. 1 (1947), winner of
Radio Éireann Chamber Music Prize; In Memoriam Mahatma Gandhi (1948), an orchestral work; Violin Concerto (1954), Megalithic
Ritual Dances (1956), String Quartet, No. 2 (1957), Symphonic
Inscapes (1968), and Masai Mara (1988); prolific output of
chamber music, song and mixed ensemble works; ‘international outlook
combined with distinctly Irish flavour’; Chair of Music, TCD, 1962-82;
established School of Music; member of Arts Council, 1961-1983; Mus.D.,
TCD, 1959; Hon D.Litt., NUI, 1974; Commendatore Della Republic Italian,
1983; director of Lowland Consort, 1958-1969; Aosdana, 1984; issued A
Dublin Musical Calendar, 1700-1760, and Rotunda Music in Eighteenth-century
Dublin; articles in Grove’s Dictionary; ashes bur. in
Glasnevin Cemetery. WJM
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Works
Choral, A Terrible Beauty Is
Born, 1966, 30 mins [Soloists, narrator, choir and orchestra; commissioned
by RTÉ for the 1916 Commemoration]; Mors et Vita, 1960/61,
23 mins [Soloists, choir and orchestra].
Songs, Four Yeats Songs, 1965-68, 11 mins [soprano and orchestra, and in original form for soprano and Irish harp]; Five Joyce Songs, 1947, 15 mins [baritone and orchestra or piano]; Wild Geese, 1940 [baritone and piano].
Prose, A Dublin Musical Calendar, 1700-1760 (Dublin: IAP 1988).
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Criticism
Charles Acton, ‘Interview with Brian Boydell’, Éire-Ireland,
5, 4 (Winter 1970), pp.97-111 [incl bib. of works by Yeats, Joyce and
Shan F. Bullock which Boydell has scored]. Also Martin Adams, Obit., The
Irish Times (9 Nov. 2000, p.3); Gareth Cox, Alex Klein & Michael Taylor, eds., The Life and Music
of Brian Boydell (Dublin: IAP 2003), 132pp.
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Commentary
John Haffendon, John Berryman (London: Routledge 1982), remarks that the poems of Berryman were ‘teeming with idiomatic and moral risks and raising fascinating problems of form ' and quotes ‘Friendless in Clare, except Brian Boydell / a Dubliner with no hair / an expressive tenor speaking voice.’ (“Friendless”; here p.1.) Haffenden narrates that, on meeting the reference, he ‘contacted Professor Boydell [whom he knew from his own student days at Trinity College] and form that point on my eagerness to comprehend the life of John Berryman would never be checked’ (p.1).
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Notes
Hobbies: A sports-car enthusiast, he lost his hair by fire in car-related accident in early manhood and in later life he built organs for relaxation.
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