Faber Music has entered a new publishing agreement with the estate of Ina Boyle (1889-1967), representing over 80 works by one of Ireland’s most prolific composers from the first half of the twentieth century. Boyle’s output is extensive and diverse, encompassing orchestral works, choral music, chamber pieces, songs, ballets, and an opera. See Boyle's catalogue here.
A pioneering voice, she was the first Irish woman to undertake a symphony (1927’s Glencree), Violin Concerto (1935) and ballet score (the Virgilian Suite, composed in 1931). Ralph Vaughan Williams, who taught her composition during her stint at the Royal College of Music in the early 1920s, championed her music and encouraged her to continue with her work despite a lack of recognition during her lifetime. Today, the ongoing rediscovery of her work has begun to remedy that injustice.
Folk music provides an important source in her work, alongside the influence of myth and folklore. Her Violin Concerto, unearthed in 2010 in the Trinity College Dublin archive, sees chorale- and hymn-like ideas meeting the late Romantic lushness of Max Bruch; the work concludes with a lively dance, with an elegiac dive into a Christmas Carol composed in memory of Boyle’s mother. A pastoral influence, again redolent of Vaughan Williams, infuses the spirit of her Symphony No.1. Subtitled Glencree (In the Wicklow Hills), it is a bracing showcase of the landscape in which she lived, with a swirling middle-movement jig evoking ‘Nightwinds in the Valley’.
Her Second Symphony, ‘The Dream of the Rood’, takes a more mystical turn, inspired by the 10th-century Anglo-Saxon poem, which describes the events of the crucifixion from the perspective of the cross itself. Boyle’s 30-minute work, cast in three movements, begins with a folksy theme, before dramatic depictions of the felling of the tree and a funeral procession of dark grandeur; it received its world premiere in 2022 from David Brophy and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland. Boyle’s first Symphony and Violin Concerto were recorded by the BBC Concert Orchestra and Ronald Corp on a portrait album from Dutton Vocalion, also featuring her Wildgeese – a 4-minute sketch for chamber orchestra.
Boyle spent almost her entire life on the family estate in Bushey Park, Enniskerry, County Wicklow. Raised in a small, close‑knit household with her parents and her sister Phyllis, she received her earliest musical training at home. Her father, the Reverend William Foster Boyle—who also crafted violins and cellos—introduced her to music, while the family’s governess provided violin and cello lessons to both sisters.
Demonstrating talent from an early age, Boyle began formal musical studies in childhood. At eleven, she undertook harmony and theory lessons with Samuel Myerscough and later advanced her studies in composition and counterpoint under Charles Herbert Kitson and George Hewson in Dublin. Her artistic development was further shaped by guidance from her cousin, the composer Charles Wood, Professor of Music at Cambridge.
Boyle created a rich chamber and song output that has been well-represented on recordings and, increasingly, on the concert platform. The Piatti Quartet have recorded her String Quartet No.1 in E minor – a searching, restless in movements lasting 20 minutes – as well as her Lament for Bion with James Gilchrist (an English setting of an Ancient Greek pastoral poem) and Still Falls the Rain with soprano Sharon Carty, a setting of Edith Sitwell. London audiences will have the opportunity to experience her rich song output at Wigmore Hall on 10 March, with performances from Ailish Tynan, Robin Tritschler, Paula Murrihy, and Iain Burnside.; the latter three recorded selections from Boyle’s song catalogue for Delphian in 2021. On 4 April Roderick Williams performs Boyle’s A Song of Enchantment at Wigmore Hall, a setting of Walter de la Mare.
“I think it is most courageous of you to go on with such little recognition. The only thing to say is that it does come finally”, Vaughan Williams wrote to the composer in the 1930s. As if by way of vindication, interest in Boyle’s music has grown significantly in recent years. The Ina Boyle Society Limited (IBSL), founded in 2020, has played a central role in promoting her legacy, supporting performances, and encouraging scholarly research.
Her works have been featured at several high‑profile events, including the 2024 Blackwater Valley Opera Festival’s “Irish Melodies” recital, the Music in Calvary Summer Series, and concerts at Dublin’s National Concert Hall. Performances at London’s Wigmore Hall and by the BBC Concert Orchestra have further helped bring her music to wider audiences. She was the subject of the 2018 biography Ina Boyle 1889–1967: A Composer’s Life by Ita Beausang and Séamas de Barra (Cork University Press) - a key resource on her life and output. Many of Boyle’s manuscripts are preserved in the Library of Trinity College Dublin.
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