Books in the Carysfort Press Ltd. series

Sedirse Bodley is one of the best-known senior figures of contemporary music in Ireland. This book seeks to examine his engagement with the poetry of Micheal O'Siadhail and the making of these song cycles. It assesses the joint contribution to Irish art song and seeks to understand its roots in and departure from European tradition.This apograph is the first publication of Bodley's O'Siadhail song cycles and is the first book to explore the composer's lyrical modernity from a number of perspectives. Lorraine Byrne Bodley's insightful introduction describes in detail the development and essence of Bodley's musical thinking, the European influences he absorbed which linger in these cycles, and the importance of his work as a composer of Irish art song. She asks an array of questions: Does song play a new role in twentieth-century music or was this the age, as many have insisted, that bears witness to the «death of song»? How does contemporary Irish art song inscribe individual concerns and mirror the influence of dominant social trends through its music and its texts? She demonstrates that the answers to such questions illuminate the context in which these cycles were created, and how they were valued and viewed. Through a blend of close analysis of Bodley's songs and wide-ranging engagement with both poetry and music, this book sheds new light on Bodley's integral part in fashioning Irish art song. It analyses the way Bodley's song has been harnessed both to legitimate and to challenge national art song. And it identifies elements of Bodley's musical style which are shaped by European tradition.Beyond such musico-poetic analysis, Lorraine Byrne Bodley's reading of the threefold roles of continuity, gradual change, and revolution opens up a «braided history» of Irish art song, where song is not an aesthetic given but a means to understanding the changing patterns of life. She argues convincingly that an understanding of the way in which Irish society has perceived song in recent centuries is available through a consideration of song as social document, and in her appraisal of Bodley's O'Siadhail settings she considers the importance of these song cycles as a reflection of Ireland's rich cultural history.

As well as providing a very readable and comprehensive study of the life and music of John Buckley,¿Constellations also offers an up-to-date and informative catalogue of compositions, a complete discography, translations of set texts and the full libretto of his chamber opera, making this book an essential guide for both students and professional scholars alike.

Lecture proceedings including the essence of theatre; Ireland's contribution to the art of theatre; the potential of drama in the classroom; the relationship between drama and film; and on opera and its history.

Poems 2000-2005 is a transitional collection written while the author - also known to be W. J. Me Cormack, literary historian - was in the process of moving back from London to settle in rural Ireland. It is also a vigorous contribution to the age-old dialogue between Sacred and Profane themes, questioning beliefs and pleasures, guilts and landscapes, poetic methods and prosaic realities.

In this edition, the first in which all Beethoven's Irish folksong settings are published together, the late baritone, broadcaster and musicologist, Tomas O Suilleabhain, selected texts, mostly by Burns and Moore, which he felt were more appropriate to the airs and to Beethoven's settings.

In this fascinating reappraisal of the non-literary drama of the late 19th - early 20th century, Christopher Fitz-Simon discloses a unique world of plays, players and producers in metropolitan theatres in Ireland and other countries where Ireland was viewed as a source of extraordinary topics at once contemporary and comfortably remote.

Since the late 1970s there has been a marked internationalization of Irish drama, with individual plays, playwrights, and theatrical companies establishing newly global reputations. This book reflects upon these developments, drawing together leading scholars and playwrights to consider the consequences that arise when Irish theatre travels abroad. Essays discuss some of Ireland¿s major theatre companies ¿ Druid, the Abbey Theatre, Rough Magic, Blue Raincoat, Field Day and others ¿ while also exploring the presence of Irish drama in the UK, the USA, Germany, and throughout Ireland. The volume also presents the views of key playwrights, featuring essays by Elizabeth Kuti and Ursula Rani Sarma, and including a new interview with Enda Walsh.

Ireland on Stage: Beckett and After, a collection of ten essays on contemporary Irish theatre, focuses primarily on Irish playwrights and their works, both in text and on the stage, in the latter half of the twentieth century.

As Ireland changes, how should we think about the works of familiar figures - writers like Synge, O'Casey, Friel, Murphy, Carr and McGuinness? Is the distinction between popular and literary drama tenable in a Celtic Tiger Ireland where the arts and economics are becoming increasingly intertwined.