Stanford | Shamus O’Brien

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About the recording

Project

We are very excited to announce that we recorded Shamus O’Brien early in 2023, in Glasgow, with the orchestra of Scottish Opera, conducted by David Parry. The opera is dramatic and comic by turns, and all the performers did it full justice!

There is a great deal of interest in Stanford at the moment, especially with the centenary of his death approaching in 2024. This is our first excursion into a distinctly Irish opera, and Shamus O’Brien was by an Irish country mile Stanford’s most popular opera. Joseph O’Mara (1864–1927), the famous Irish opera singer who created the part of the opera’s villain, Mike Murphy, which he found “a strong acting part”, stated in an interview: “Dr Stanford is Irish, Mr Jessop, the author of the book, is Irish, the story is Irish, and what is still more to the point, the music of the piece is Irish in style and sentiment. I don’t think the lyric stage can show you so essentially Irish a piece of work” (The Era, 12 December 1896). For this reason,we have put together an Irish cast who has done proper justice to the material.

Shamus O'Brien - The Opera

Shamus O’Brien was easily Charles Villiers Stanford’s most successful opera. And not surprisingly: the music has abundant energy and variety, and anyone familiar primarily with Stanford’s church music will find its freshness and vivacity striking. ‘Musically, “Shamus O’Brien” is simply a little masterpiece’, enthused the Musical Times reviewer in 1896. The beauty of the music, the light touch, and the sense of humour in this ‘romantic comic opera’ make it thoroughly worthy of revival after many years of neglect.

Based on a poem by fellow Anglo-Irishman Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, and set against the backdrop of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, Shamus presents the Irish as proud patriots who outwit the rather dim English soldiers charged with keeping order, although this straightforward plot is complicated by the betrayal of Shamus by fellow villager Mike Murphy and the inter-communal romance between Irish ‘colleen’ Kitty O’Toole and Captain Trevor.

Composed in 1895, Shamus O’Brien was Stanford’s fifth completed opera and a new departure for him: having previously focused on the ‘grand’ style, Shamus is much closer to the opéra comiquegenre as rejuvenated by Bizet in Carmen, in which comedy, tragedy and a degree of melodrama are combined (although Shamus most certainly does not contain a femme fatale!). First performed in 1896, the opera proved popular, running for a remarkable 82 performances in the West End before going on an extensive tour in Britain and Ireland; in 1897 it also enjoyed a two-month run in New York.

Few composers take the step of withdrawing one of their own operas for political reasons, but this is exactly what Stanford did shortly before the First World War. As the politics of Home Rule intensified in the 1910s, Stanford, an ardent Unionist, withdrew Shamus as he worried that it might foment Irish nationalism and anti-English sentiment; the ban effectively remained in place until his death in March 1924. Less than five months later, Shamus was returned to the stage in Dublin, in a production by Joseph O’Mara’s touring opera company. They took it into their repertoire and gave the opera a second lease of life, those performances preparing the way for a BBC broadcast in 1930. Shamus O’Brien is long overdue for another revival.

(c) Paul Rodmell

Charles Villiers Stanford

Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) was one of the leading musicians of his generation, and had a profound effect on the development and history of English music as a performer, conductor, composer, teacher and writer.

Born in Dublin into a musical family, Stanford attended Queen’s College Cambridge as an organ scholar. He subsequently studied composition in Germany, became organist at Trinity College Cambridge in 1873, and Conductor of the Cambridge University Musical Society in 1875. He was appointed Professor of Composition at the Royal College of Music in London in 1883 (a position that he held for more than forty years) and Professor of Music at Cambridge in 1888. He subsequently held appointments as Conductor of the Bach Choir in London, the Leeds Philharmonic Society and the Leeds Festival.

Stanford was a prolific composer, completing seven symphonies, eight string quartets, nine operas, more than 300 songs, 30 large scale choral works and a large body of chamber music. He also composed a substantial number of works for the organ, as well as anthems and settings of the canticles for the Anglican Church.

Today Stanford is largely remembered for his songs and religious music as well as his influence on several generations of composition students at the Royal College of Music. These included Sir Arthur Bliss, Frank Bridge, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Rebecca Clarke, Malcolm Davidson, Ivor Gurney, Gustav Holst, Herbert Howells, Muriel Herbert, John Ireland, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Charles Wood. There has been a revival of interest in Stanford’s music over the past two decades and an increasing number of his works are now available in recordings.

With thanks to the Stanford Society

Performers

We have a fantastic lineup of singers:

David Parry | conductor
Jarlath Henderson | Irish piper
Orchestra of Scottish Opera

Our recording team are Alexander van Ingen, Matthew Bennett and, again, Dave Rowell, who’s done fantastic recordings for us many times. If you would like to help this happen, please do consider making a donation.