Sigma Alpha Iota

Fall 2019 60 PAN PIPES INA BOYLE (1889-1967): A COMPOSER'S LIFE By Ita Beausang, with an essay on the music by Séamas de Barra. Cork University Press, 2018. I rish composer Ina Boyle is likely unknown to many, but in this brief account of her life and music, we become familiar with a woman whose perseverance and determination to succeed as a composer never wavered. Ina Boyle was unusual in some ways for someone who wanted to see her compositions reach a wider audience—she lived her entire life in her family home in the small town of Enniskerry, County Wicklow, not too far from Dublin, Ireland and rarely ventured farther than London. Nevertheless, she was a prolific composer, and her output included orchestral and choral works, as well as chamber music, vocal music, and an opera. The little recognition she received during her lifetime did not accurately reflect her abilities as a composer. The first section of this book, written by Ita Beausang, imparts the biographical facts of Ina's life and describes her progression as a composer. She inherited her musical gift primarily from her clergyman father, whose hobby was making violins and who was her first teacher. By the time she was eleven, however, she had begun studying theory and harmony privately with Dublin organist Samuel Spencer Myerscough.Subsequently, she took composition lessons through correspondence with Dr. Charles Wood, a cousin by marriage who taught music in Cambridge and at the Royal College of Music. After studying with several other teachers, she came under the tutelage of Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1922. Until the outbreak of World War II, she would travel to London regularly for her lessons with Vaughan Williams. Boyle had some occasional successes, including being the only woman composer selected for publication by the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust competition in 1919. Winning for her orchestral rhapsody The Magic Harp, Boyle received some acclaim, but it was not long- lasting. Despite the high opinion Vaughan Williams and others held of her music, she was to spend the larger part of her life attempting to get her works performed with only a modicum of success. The second part of the volume is turned over to Séamas de Barra, who provides a detailed examination of several compositions representative of Boyle's output. He convincingly argues for the value and significance of Boyle's music. Although some of his analysis might be in too much depth for a non-musician, it does effectively and accurately demonstrate Boyle's style and technique. Because Ina Boyle was previously unknown to me, I found it worthwhile to listen to her music. Featuring world premiere recordings of her orchestral work performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra under Ronald Corp, this disc, released by Dutton in 2018 (CDLX 7352) is available from online retailers. Boyle's lush harmonies and innovative instrumentation proved to be a truly pleasurable listening experience. Ideally, Ina Boyle (1889-1967): A Composer's Life will go a long way toward making the musical world more aware of this unfortunately neglected composer. Kathi Bower Peterson, an SAI Philanthropies coordinator, is a graduate of Indiana University, where she majored in music history and was a member of Iota Epsilon chapter. She has an MM in musicology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an MLIS from San Jose State University. She has been the librarian at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library in La Jolla, CA for 22 years and currently serves as the treasurer of the San Diego County Alumnae Chapter. REVIEWS ANNELIESE LANDAU'S LIFE IN MUSIC: NAZI GERMANY TO ÉMIGRÉ CALIFORNIA By Lily E. Hirsch. University of Rochester Press, 2019. T his new book introduces a remarkable woman who led a life that deserves to be remembered, and whose achievements need to be acknowledged. The musicologist Anneliese Landau was born in 1903 in Halle, Germany, and faced innumerable obstacles because of her gender and her Jewish faith. Were she neither female nor Jew, she might very well be remembered today for her contributions to music, but because of these "limitations" she had to work very hard to support herself. Lily Hirsch very ably documents the successes and challenges Landau faced throughout her life. She divides the book into five parts, each coinciding with a significant phase of the musicologist's life. Part One deals with Landau's early life and musical education. It describes her first exposure to music — born into a family who was musical, she began piano lessons with her mother, who had completed her studies at the conservatory in Vienna. Anneliese Landau went on to earn her PhD in musicology from Berlin University in 1929. Due to the patriarchal nature of the university system at that time (women comprised only 1.2 percent of faculty in German and Austrian universities), Landau did not attempt to secure a position in academia and worked instead as an indexer and freelance music critic. Later, she went on to find success giving music lectures on the radio. Part Two describes Landau's life in Germany after the Nazis came to power. Although she lost her radio job due to being Jewish, she managed to find a position in the newly formed Jewish Culture League, an

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