Peter Murray remembers the multi-talented artist-composer Brian Boydell
Born in Dublin in 1917, Brian Boydell was Professor of Music at Trinity College until his retirement in 1982. While today he is regarded as one of Ireland’s leading composers of the 20th century, it is worth recalling that in the early 1940s he was also an aspiring painter. His career path was far from certain: educated at the Dragon School and at Rugby, Boydell went on to read natural sciences at Cambridge. Graduating with a first, he then attended the Royal College of Music in London, studying composition with Patrick Hadley and Ralph Vaughan Williams, before spending time inHeideIberg in the mid 1930s. A committed pacifist, Boydell was appalled at the militarization that swept Europe during these years. Returning to Dublin, he briefly joined his father’s maltings business, but left to become a painter and composer, while working as a teacher at St Columba’s College. In 1942 he was awarded a degree in Music at Trinity College.
As Europe confronts its current refugee crisis, Kathryn Milligan looks back to 1916 when a Belgian artist was one of the 2,300 Belgian refugees who sought shelter in Ireland.
Peter Murray reflects on the cool Nordic aesthetic of Patricia Burns whose work is on view in January at the Taylor Galleries, Dublin.
Recent excavations at Rathfarnham Castle have brought the former inhabitants into focus, prompting Simon Loftus to recall some vivid episodes from the family’s history.