Seóirse Bodley facts for kids

Seóirse Bodley (pronounced "SHOR-sha BOD-lee"), born on April 4, 1933, and passing away on November 17, 2023, was a very important Irish composer. He also taught music at University College Dublin (UCD). He was the first composer ever to be named a Saoi of Aosdána in 2008. A "Saoi" is a special honor given to artists in Ireland who have made amazing contributions to their art. Many people think Seóirse Bodley was one of the most important Irish composers of modern classical music in the 1900s. He was a big part of Irish music, not just as a composer, but also as a teacher, someone who arranged music, played piano for others, judged competitions, worked on radio, and conducted orchestras.

His Life Story

Early Life and Education

Seóirse Bodley was born George Pascal Bodley in Dublin, Ireland. His father, George James Bodley, worked for a railway company and later for the Ports and Docks Board. His mother, Mary, worked for the famous Guinness brewery.

Seóirse went to schools in Dublin suburbs like Phibsboro and Glasnevin. When he was nine, he moved to an Irish-speaking school. Later, he studied at the School of Commerce in Rathmines, where he finished his Leaving Certificate (a final school exam).

Music was a big part of his home life. His father taught him to play the mandolin, and his mother taught him piano. He studied piano, harmony, and counterpoint (how different musical lines fit together) at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. He also earned a piano qualification from Trinity College, London. From age 13, he even took acting classes for a while!

He started learning composition (how to write music) privately from a German conductor named Hans Waldemar Rosen. This continued on and off until 1956. From his student days, Seóirse often played piano for singers and took part in small group music performances. A key part of his music education was attending free concerts twice a week by the Radio Éireann Symphony Orchestra. There, he heard many famous Irish and international musicians play both old and new music.

Becoming a Composer

In 1952, Seóirse began studying for a Bachelor of Music degree at University College Dublin (UCD), mostly with Anthony Hughes. He finished this degree in 1955. From 1957 to 1959, he went to Germany to study composition and conducting at the Musikhochschule in Stuttgart. A year later, he earned a Doctorate in Music from UCD. He also took classes in conducting and piano.

In the early 1960s, he returned to Germany several times for special music courses. These courses greatly helped him learn about new and experimental music styles.

From 1959 until he retired in 1998, Bodley taught at UCD's music department. He became an associate professor in 1984. In the 1960s, he also conducted the Culwick Choral Society, a choir group.

His journey as a composer had several different stages. In the 1970s, he started mixing modern, experimental music with traditional Irish music. This made him a very important figure in Irish music. He was asked to write music for big events, like his Symphony No. 3 (1981), which was written for the opening of the National Concert Hall.

In 1982, Bodley became a founding member of Aosdána, a group that supports Irish artists. In November 2008, President Mary McAleese gave him the special "Saoi" honor. She said that Bodley "helped us to rethink what it means to be an artist in Ireland."

Later Years

Seóirse Bodley passed away on November 17, 2023, at the age of 90.

His Music Style

Bodley's first important piece was Music for Strings, which was first played on December 10, 1952. He wrote seven symphonies (large orchestral pieces), five for a full orchestra and two for smaller groups of instruments. He also wrote many pieces for instruments and voices, including A Small White Cloud Drifts over Ireland (1975), four string quartets (for four string instruments), and several long song cycles.

His music changed over time. In his early years, until 1961, his music sounded a bit like composers such as Paul Hindemith. He wrote pieces like Music for Strings and his Symphony No. 1. During this time, he also arranged many traditional Irish tunes for choirs and orchestras, and wrote songs for a singer named Tomás Ó Súilleabháin. This early music mostly showed his technical skills.

Blending Styles

In the 1960s, his music started to develop more, especially after he visited the Darmstadt New Music Summer School in Germany three times. His instrumental music became more experimental, using different sounds from string instruments. He also began to use all twelve notes of the musical scale in new ways.

For the rest of the 1960s, he was seen as the main Irish composer using "post-serial" methods, which are advanced ways of organizing music. His visits to Darmstadt made him believe that this modern style was the best way for music to grow. Important works from this time include the piano piece Prelude, Toccata and Epilogue (1963) and his String Quartet No. 1 (1968). This quartet was described as very complex and unique.

From 1972 to 1980, his music showed a strong mix of traditional Irish music and modern European styles. You can hear this in pieces like The Narrow Road to the Deep North for two pianos (1972) and the orchestral piece A Small White Cloud Drifts over Ireland (1975). He also wrote a 40-minute song cycle called A Girl (1978). This blending of styles was sometimes debated, but it was also praised as a very clever way to use traditional music in a modern setting, letting traditional melodies meet modern sounds.

Later Works

After 1980, his music continued to show both Irish and European influences. Examples of this mature style include Phantasms (1989), a piece for flute, clarinet, harp, and cello, and his String Quartet No. 2 (1992). In these, you can hear hints of Irish traditional music used in a very subtle way. For larger works like his Symphonies Nos 4 and 5 (both finished in 1991), he sometimes used a more romantic style, which was different from his earlier experimental works.

After 1999, he entered a possible fifth phase. He started including traditional tonal (melodic) elements within his more modern, atonal (without a clear key) music. Later works like String Quartets No. 3 (2004) and No. 4 (2007) and the Piano Trio (2014) show a lot of energy. He also loved setting poems to music, creating original pieces like After Great Pain (2002) and The Hiding Places of Love (2011).

Bodley also wrote music for church services, which had its own style. This includes masses like the Mass of Peace (1976) and Mass of Joy (1978), and smaller pieces for choirs.

Music for Screen and Stage

Besides concert and church music, Seóirse Bodley wrote music for film and television for many years. Some examples include TV documentaries like Michael Davitt and the Land League (1979) and the RTÉ series Caught in a Free State (1983). Perhaps his most widely heard work was his orchestral arrangement of the traditional Irish tune "The Palatine's Daughter." This was used as the theme music for RTÉ's popular rural drama series The Riordans.

Selected works

Recordings

Here are some of the recordings of Seóirse Bodley's music:

• Music for Strings, performed by Radio Éireann Symphony Orchestra, Milan Horvat (conductor), on: Decca (USA) DL 9843 (LP, 1958).
• Iníon an Phailitínigh (folksong arrangement for orchestra), performed by Radio Éireann Light Orchestra, Éimear Ó Broin (conductor), on: Gael-Linn CEF 001 (LP, 1958), re-issued as Gael-Linn CEFCD 001 (CD, 2009).
• Táim Gan Im Gan Ór (folksong arrangement for orchestra), performed by Radio Éireann Light Orchestra, Éimear Ó Broin (conductor), on: Gael-Linn CEF 004 (LP, c.1960).
• I Will Walk with My Love (arrangement), performed by RTÉ Singers, Hans Waldemar Rosen (conductor), on: Harmonia Mundi HMS 30691 (LP, 1965).
• Prelude, Toccata and Epilogue, performed by Charles Lynch (piano), on: New Irish Recording Company NIR 001 (LP, 1971).
• String Quartet No. 1, performed by RTÉ String Quartet, on: New Irish Recording Company NIR 006 (LP, 1973).
• Chamber Symphony no. 1, performed by New Irish Chamber Orchestra, André Prieur (conductor), on: New Irish Recording Company NIR 012 (LP, 1974).
• I Will Walk with My Love (arrangement), performed by Culwick Choral Society, Eric Sweeney (conductor), on: New Irish Recording Company DEB 002 (LP, 1974).
• Mass of Peace, performed by Clonliffe College Choir, S. Bodley (conductor), on: Network Tapes NTO 55C (MC, 1977).
• Mass of Joy; Hymn to St. John of God, [no performers mentioned], on: Network Tapes NTO 102C (MC, 1979).
• A Girl; The Narrow Road to the Deep North, performed by Bernadette Greevy (mezzo-soprano) and John O'Conor (piano), Gael-Linn CEF 085 (LP & MC, 1980).
• Laoi Chainte an Tombac (folksong arrangement for choir), performed by Cór Naomh Mhúire, Fintan Ó Murchu (conductor), on: Corkfest Records 94 (CD, 1994).
• The Naked Flame; Carta Irlandesa; By the Margin of the Great Deep, performed by Aylish Kerrigan (mezzo-soprano), S. Bodley (piano), on: Echo Classics Digital (CD, 1996).
• Symphony No. 4; Symphony No. 5: The Limerick Symphony, performed by National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Colman Pearce (conductor), on: Marco Polo 8.225157 (CD, 2001).
• A Small White Cloud Drifts over Ireland; Chamber Symphony No. 1; Symphony No. 2: I Have Loved the Lands of Ireland, performed by RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Robert Houlihan (conductor), on: RTÉ Lyric fm CD 121 (CD, 2008).
• The Narrow Road to the Deep North, performed by Isabelle O'Connell (piano), on: Diatribe DIACDSOL 001 (CD, 2010).
• Islands, performed by John Feeley (guitar), on: Overture Music [no matrix no.] (CD, 2010).
• Dancing in Daylight, performed by Fidelio Trio, on: Metier MSV 28556 (CD, 2015).
• String Quartet No. 1 (first movement), performed by RTÉ ConTempo Quartet, on: RTÉ lyric fm CD 153 (CD, 2016).
• After Great Pain; Remember; The Tightrope Walker Presents a Rose, performed by Aylish Kerrigan (mezzo-soprano) and Dearbhla Collins (piano), on: Métier MSV 28558 (CD, 2016).
• A Girl (songcycle), performed by Aylish Kerrigan (mezzo-soprano) and Dearbhla Collins (piano), on: Métier MSV 28560 (CD, 2017).