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| Byrne Bodley, Lorraine (ed.) |
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| A Hazardous Melody of Being |
Seóirse Bodley's Song Cycles on the Poems of Micheal O'Siadhail
An Apograph |
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| Series: |
Carysfort Press Ltd.  Vol. 531 |
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| Year of Publication: 2008 |
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| Carysfort Press, Dublin, 2008. 20,3 x 28,2 cm, XL, 91 pp. |
| ISBN 978-1-90450531-0 pb. |
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| Sales price |
| SFR 39.00 |
€* 26.80 |
€** 27.50 |
€ 25.00 |
£ 22.50 |
US-$ 38.95 |
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| * |
includes VAT - only valid for Germany |
[Currency of invoice] |
| ** |
includes VAT - only valid for Austria |
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| Book synopsis |
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Seoirse Bodley is one of the best known senior figures of contemporary music in Ireland. This book seeks to examine his engagement with the poetry of Micheal O'Siadhail and the making of these song cycles. It assesses the joint contribution to Irish art song and seeks to understand its roots in and departure from European tradition.
This apograph is the first publication of Bodley's O'Siadhail song cycles and is the first book to explore the composer's lyrical modernity from a number of perspectives. Lorraine Byrne Bodley's insightful introduction describes in detail the development and essence of Bodley's musical thinking, the European influences he absorbed which linger in these cycles, and the importance of his work as a composer of Irish art song. She asks an array of questions: Does song play a new role in twentieth-century music or was this the age, as many have insisted, that bears witness to the 'death of song'? How does contemporary Irish art song inscribe individual concerns and mirror the influence of dominant social trends through its music and its texts? She demonstrates that the answers to such questions illuminate the context in which these cycles were created, and how they were valued and viewed. Through a blend of close analysis of Bodley's songs and wideranging engagement with both poetry and music, this book sheds new light on Bodley's integral part in fashioning Irish art song. It analyses the way Bodley's song has been harnessed both to legitimate and to challenge national art song. And it identifies elements of Bodley's musical style which are shaped by European tradition.
Beyond such musico-poetic analysis, Lorraine Byrne Bodley's reading of the threefold roles of continuity, gradual change, and revolution opens up a 'braided history' of Irish art song, where song is not an aesthetic given but a means to understanding the changing patterns of life. She argues convincingly that an understanding of the way in which Irish society has perceived song in recent centuries is available through a consideration of song as social document, and in her appraisal of Bodley's O'Siadhail settings she considers the importance of these song cycles as a reflection of Ireland's rich cultural history. |
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| About the author(s)/editor(s) |
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| The Editor: Lorraine Byrne Bodley is a Lecturer at the Department of Music, NUI Maynooth. She holds a Ph.D. in German and Music from University College Dublin. Awards include the Goethe Prize of the English Goethe Society (2001), a DAAD scholarship, and an IRCHSS Government of Ireland Post-Doctoral Fellowship (2001-03). Dr Byrne Bodley has published nine books. She is the sole author of two books: Schubert's Goethe Settings and Goethe and Zelter: Musical Dialogues. She has edited five volumes of musicological essays and critical editions of scores: The Unknown Schubert co-edited with the Canadian scholar, Barbara Reul (University of Regina). She is the sole editor of Proserpina: Monodrama by Goethe with Music by Carl Eberwein (Carysfort Press, 2007) and Goethe: Musical Poet, Musical Catalyst (Carysfort Press, 2004). She is co-editor with Dan Farrelly of Goethe and Schubert: Across the Divide (Carysfort Press, 2003) and a piano reduction of Claudine von Villa Goethe's Singspiel set by Franz Schubert (Carysfort Press, 2002). This is the second apograph she has produced with Seóirse Bodley. The first, Seóirse Bodley: Three Congregational Masses, was published by Carysfort Press in 2005. |
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