From the Celtic to the abstract: shifting perspectives in the music of John Buckley

‘From the Celtic to the Abstract: Shifting Perspectives in the Music of John Buckley’ surveys the trajectory of the Irish composer's development in compositional aesthetics. Buckey's early works such as Taller than Roman Spears (1977), Oileáin (1979), Boireann (1983) and I am Wind on Sea (1987) embrace a Celticism in their mythical sources and, in some cases, their absorption of traditional Irish materials in varying degress of sublimation. The essay overviews Buckely's movement away from these early influences to disclose his increasing fascination with abstract schemata profoundly influenced by French musical aesthetics

Theodor Adorno & Alban Berg: correspondence: 1925–1935, edited by Henri Lonitz, review

This is an in-depth review of Theodor Adorno & Alban Berg: Correspondence: 1925–1935, edited by Henri Lonitz (Polity, 2005). The article explores the numerous musical contexts, and socio-political and cultural backgrounds to the letters between the composer and his pupil, Adorno. Among these are the numerous attempts by Adorno to influence Berg’s creative decisions through attempts to inject political agency into his work. The broader political currents of the war years, especially those affecting the Jewish community, are overviewed in the letters and the article exposes surprising elements of anti-Semitism among certain members of the establishment in Britain. The role of the Frankfurt School is highlighted and a evaluation is offered of Adorno’s obsession with castigating Stravinsky and neo-classicism. Finally, Adorno’s confusion regarding Berg’s Violin Concerto, which was interpreted by the former as a type of betrayal of serialism’s mission, is exposed and critiqued

Innocence and Experience: The life and music of James Wilson, Mark Fitzgerald [Book Review]

This is a review of a book on the life and work of Anglo-Irish composer James Wilson, written by Mark Fitzgerald (Cork: Cork University Press, 2015). ISBN 978-1-78205-136-7., ix+249pp). 4,058 words

Dios los cría...

Dios los cría… surveys the contribution that composer and bassist Barry Guy and Baroque violinist Maya Homburger have made to music over the past two decades. Guy is perhaps the most significant bassist in the international free jazz scene. Homburger is a leading figure in Historically Informed Performance (HIP). Over the last 20 years they have worked together in a number of genres and have released numerous ground-breaking recordings of contemporary, free jazz and Baroque music. This article explores their unique performance signatures and the contribution they have made to cross-genre composition and performance

Barry Guy’s Time Passing...

This is a review of the recording and score of Barry Guy's composition Time Passing... It expolores Guy's aesthetic approach to composition and his juxtaposition of free-jazz and notated compositional signatures

Joycean aesthetics and mythic imagination in the music of Frank Corcoran

This essay explores points of convergence and difference in Irish composer Frank Corcoran's relationship to aesthetic elements at the core of James Joyce's writing. Such shared elements include techniques of deconstruction and assemblage, stream-of-consciousness writing, etymological and lexical invention, and the creation of a mythic vision of 20th-century Ireland. By viewing the music of Frank Corcoran through a Joycean lens, the essay brings new light to a late-modernist Irish composer

Sheela-na-gigs and an ‘Aesthetics of Damage’

In this essay I discuss how the enigmatic stone carvings known as Sheela-na-gigs have impacted my music. These carvings are thought to date from the 11th century or before and are mostly found in Ireland and parts of Britain. The combination of their crudity (they expose exaggerated vulvas and are essentially abject visually), their sacred place in earlier Gaelic communities, and the way they have been treated by ensuing religious power in Ireland make them 'witnesses' to Ireland's colonial, religious and socio-cultural history and a useful feminist lens. This essay explores how sheela-na-gigs have impacted my own compositional aesthetics

Within it lie ancient melodies: Dowland’s musical rhetoric and Britten’s songs from the Chinese

‘“Within it Lie Ancient Melodies” – Locating Dowland’s Musical Rhetoric in Britten’s Songs from the Chinese’, reveals evidence of Britten’s simulation of processes of musical rhetoric found in Dowland’s lute songs, thereby providing verification of a shared musical idiolect. This article focuses upon specific examples of musical rhetoric used by Dowland and replicated by Britten that give this melancholic idiolect its affective power. There is no evidence to suggest that Britten was academically aware that he was employing tools of musical rhetoric; and I do not suggest that he was attempting to consciously plagiarize Dowland. What I argue is that the considerable degree to which numerous technical features in Songs from the Chinese correlate to those found in Dowland’s songs indicates the extent to which Britten subconsciously assimilated Dowland’s language into his own

Numerical methods and calculations for droplet flow, heating and ignition

A numerical method was devised and employed to solve a variety of problems related to liquid droplet combustion. The basic transport equations of mass, momentum and energy were formulated in terms of generalized nonorthogonal coordinates, which allows for adaptive griding and arbitrary particle shape. Example problems are solved for internal droplet heating, droplet ignition and high Reynolds number flow over a droplet