Gramophone Tue 1st March 2016
Recent Irish Music
Liam Cagney chooses 10 pieces connected with Ireland’s recent history
This year marks the centenary of the Easter Rising in Ireland, the rebellion that led to the founding of the Irish
State. Commemorations are duly filling the cultural calendar.
My playlist salutes the range and vibrancy of music coming from this small island in recent years.
As you’d expect, Irish composers continue to draw inspiration from Irish literature: Jane O’Leary’s riverrun at
once references James Joyce and the flow of Dublin’s river Liffey; Frank Corcoran, here represented by the
lugubrious opening movement of his Symphony No 3, also closely engages with Joyce; while John Buckley’s The Silver
Apples of the Moon, the Golden Apples of the Sun is inspired by Yeats’s poetry.