Frederick May (composer) facts for kids

Frederick May (born June 9, 1911 – died September 8, 1985) was an Irish composer and arranger. He created many musical pieces. However, his career was made harder by a lifelong hearing problem. Because of this, he didn't compose as much as he might have.

Early Life and Studies

Frederick May was born in Dublin, Ireland. His family lived in a part of Dublin called Donnybrook. He studied music at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. There, John Larchet taught him how to compose music.

In 1930, his piece Irish Love Song was published. That same year, he won the Esposito Cup at the Feis Ceoil, a music festival. This led to him being the first person to receive a new scholarship. This scholarship gave him £100 to study piano further.

In July, he took an exam for his BMus degree at Trinity College Dublin. Then he left Dublin to use his scholarship in London. In September, he joined the Royal College of Music. He learned from famous teachers like Ralph Vaughan Williams. He finished his degree in December 1931.

In 1932, May continued his studies with another scholarship. In October, he won the Octavia Travelling Scholarship. This allowed him to travel to Vienna in 1933. There, he studied with Egon Wellesz.

His piece, Scherzo for orchestra, was first played in public on December 1, 1933. Between May and October 1933, he wrote his Four Romantic Songs. These songs were first performed in London in January 1934.

Career and Challenges

On January 1, 1936, Frederick May became the Director of Music at the Abbey Theatre Dublin. He held this job until 1948. His main role was to lead a piano trio, called "The Abbey Orchestra." They played music during breaks in the theatre's shows.

In 1936, he wrote his most famous piece, the String Quartet in C Minor. However, it wasn't played in public until 1948 in London. After this, he composed other works like the Symphonic Ballad (1937) and Songs from Prison (1941). He mostly stopped writing new music around 1942. His last major orchestral work, Sunlight and Shadow, was first performed in 1956. After that, he mainly arranged existing music or updated his older pieces.

Throughout his life, May faced health challenges. He gradually lost his hearing due to a condition called otosclerosis. He also had constant ringing noises in his head. Friends, including Garech Browne, helped him. Browne's record company, Claddagh, even recorded May's String Quartet in 1974.

Frederick May believed in better music education in Ireland. He shared his ideas in The Bell, a magazine about the arts. He also helped start the Music Association of Ireland in 1948. This group promotes classical music in Ireland. Later, he became a member of Aosdána, a group that honors Irish artists.

He spent his last years at a hospital in Dublin. He passed away at 74 years old and is buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery.

His Music

Frederick May didn't write a huge number of pieces. Most of his compositions were created in the 1930s and early 1940s. His Scherzo for Orchestra was an important early work, written while he was still a student.

His String Quartet in C Minor, written in 1936, is very special. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians called it "one of the most individual statements from an Irish composer in the first half of the 20th century." May wrote this quartet as his hearing began to get worse. He later said it was "an appeal for release."

His Songs From Prison were first broadcast on BBC Radio in December 1942. This work showed that May was influenced by composers like Mahler and Berg.

After a long break, May wrote his final original piece in 1955. This was the nine-minute orchestral work Sunlight and Shadows. It was first played on January 22, 1956, by the Radio Éireann Symphony Orchestra in Dublin.

Even though he stopped writing new music, May continued to work in music. He made arrangements of Irish music for Radio Éireann. This helped him financially. He also wrote songs for voice and piano, and a short piece called Idyll for violin and piano. Idyll was chosen as a required piece for a junior violin competition in 2017.

Recordings

• Suite of Irish Airs, Radio Éireann Symphony Orchestra, Milan Horvat (cond.), on: Decca (USA) DL 9843, LP (1958).
• String Quartet in C Minor, Aeolian Quartet, on: Claddagh Records CSM2, LP (1974); re-issued on CD in 2020 (CSM2CD).
• String Quartet in C Minor, Vanbrugh Quartet, on: Marco Polo 8.223888, CD (1996).
• Sunlight and Shadow, Scherzo, Spring Nocturne, Suite of Irish Airs, Songs from Prison, RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Owen Gilhooley (baritone), Robert Houlihan (cond.), on: RTÉ lyric fm CD 135, CD (2011).
• Irish Love Song, Hesperus, Spring, Drought, The Little Black Boy, I Sing of a Maiden, Herdsman, April, Evening on Road, Dun Laoghaire, By the Bivouac's Fitful Flame, The Traveller, The Finch, Brimscombe, Communion, North Labrador, Garden Abstract, Dialogue, Four Romantic Songs; Owen Gilhooley (tenor), Catherina Lemoni O'Doherty (piano), Vanbrugh Quartet; on: DIT CMD 004 (CD accompanying the book edited by Mark Fitzgerald, see 'Bibliography', 2016).