Are
you familiar with 20-century Irish composer Joan Trimble (1915–2000)? Today on
Clef Notes, we’re going to continue our look at the classical music of Ireland
by discussing this woman who, though she spent much of her adult life outside
of Ireland, was greatly influenced by the Irish idioms that surrounded her
childhood.
Born
to musical parents, Joan Trimble and her sister Valerie were encouraged to take
lessons at a young age. Joan eventually went on to study music in college where
she developed a special liking for the work of Debussy, Ravel, and Bach. In the
mid-1930s she moved to London where she joined Valerie at the Royal College of
Music. There she met Arthur Benjamin, Herbert Howells, and Ralph Vaughan
Williams, and was encouraged to try her hand on composition.
Composing
came fairly naturally to Joan. She wrote in a variety of genres but one that
she particularly enjoyed was song, due to her love for poetry. Her first song,
“My Grief on the Sea,” is a setting of a Connacht love song translated by
Douglas Hyde:
My
grief on the sea,
How
the waves of it roll!
For
they heave between me
And
the love of my soul!
Abandoned,
forsaken,
To
grief and to care,
Will
the sea ever waken
Relief
from despair?
My
grief and my trouble!
Would
he and I were
In
the province of Leinster,
Or
country of Claire.
Were
I and my darling—
Oh
heart bitter wound!
On
board of the ship
For
America bound.
On
a green bed of rushes
All
last night I lay,
And
I flung it abroad
With
the heat of the day.
And
my love came behind me—
He
came from the south;
His
breast to my bosom,
His
mouth to my mouth.
Much
of Joan’s music has an Irish idiom, drawing from the music she grew up around
in Ireland. Joan did not have an extensive compositional output due to other
musical activities that took up her time. These included teaching at the Royal
College and performing in a piano duo with her sister Valerie.
The
piano duo even had a BBC series called Tuesday
Serenade that ran for over ten years! Once Valerie began to struggle with
her health later in life, Joan decided to move back to Ireland where she took
care of the family newspaper business.
Join
me next time as we explore Charles Stanford’s Irish Rhapsodies.
