Raymond Deane


Raymond Deane is an Irish composer.

Biography

Deane was born in Tuam, County Galway and brought up on Achill Island, County Mayo. From 1963 he lived in Dublin, where initially he studied the piano at the then College of Music with Fionn Ó Lochlainn. He studied at University College Dublin, graduating in 1974, and became a founding member of the Association of Young Irish Composers, a predecessor of today's Association of Irish Composers. He won a number of awards as a pianist. In 1974, Deane won a scholarship to study with Gerald Bennett at the Musikakademie in Basle, Switzerland. He moved on to Cologne as a student of Mauricio Kagel but was persuaded to change to studying with Karlheinz Stockhausen, which Deane abandoned after six months "due to Stockhausen's lack of engagement with his students at this period". With a DAAD scholarship, Deane continued his studies with Isang Yun in Berlin.
In the 1991 Accents Festival in Dublin, he was the featured composer, also at the 1999 Sligo New Music Festival. He represented Ireland in several ISCM festivals, and works were performed at the festivals l'Imaginaire irlandais, Voyages, Warsaw Autumn, and more than once at the UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers. He was also the artistic director of the first two RTÉ Living Music Festivals, showcasing the music of Luciano Berio and contemporary French music respectively. In 2010, a portrait concert of his chamber music took place at the Southbank Centre, London.
Deane was awarded a Doctorate in Composition by Maynooth University in 2005. He has been a member of Aosdána, the Irish state-supported academy of creative artists, since 1986.
Besides his music, Raymond Deane is known for his social commitment and human rights activism, particularly for the Ireland–Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which he co-founded in 2001, and the Irish Anti-War Movement. He cited early experiences of bullying in his childhood as a potential cause of this commitment: " I have internalised the certainty that this bullying was a defining factor in my personal growth, eventually leading to my sporadic activism on behalf of the downtrodden".
Deane has always been active as a writer of essays and a critic of music, having published in Irish journals such as "In Dublin", "Soundpost", the "Journal of Music in Ireland" and in some academic books. In 1991, he published a mock-Gothic novel called Death of a Medium. He also wrote an autobiography, covering the years up to about 1987, which was published in 2014.
Since 2022, Deane's music has been published by Universal Edition, with his earlier pieces gradually being added to the catalogue.

Music

Raymond Deane is "one of the most prominent figures in contemporary Irish composition". His work can be divided into three phases, one ending in 1974 before his studies abroad, the second ending in 1988 – a period he described as "a process of learning, assimilating and overcoming that assimilation – and the period since then, which has been described as a "re-gathering" Several works of his middle phase are consciously constructed in a technical manner to avoid the trend towards neo-romanticism that he perceived among many of his contemporaries. According to Fitzgerald, "Deane strives to achieve a dialectical drama without regressing to nineteenth-century norms of developmentalism. The result is a heterogeneous and impure dramatic discourse." Zuk wrote, "Even at first hearing, it is evident that his work is a product of a highly reflective mind, being for the most part intensely serious in tone, though shot through at times with an idiosyncratic humour and on other occasions pervaded by a distinct spirit of playfulness".

Selected works

The following list is based on Zuk, p. 121-5; more recent ones from CMC profile.
OperasThe Poet and His Double The Wall of Cloud The Alma Fetish Vagabones
Orchestral Embers for string orchestraEnchaînement de/montage Thresholds Quaternion for piano and orchestraKrespel's Concerto for violin and orchestraCatenae
  • Oboe Concerto Dekatriad Five Piece Suite for string orchestraRipieno
  • Violin Concerto Concursus for violin, viola and string orchestraSamara Hungarian Jewish Melodies for violin, viola, cello and string orchestraA Baroque Session for violin, viola, cello and string orchestra
Chamber musicEmbers for string quartetLichtzwang for cello and pianoAprèsludes for flute, cello, clarinet, percussion, harp, viola, cello
  • String Quartet I: Silhouettes Seachanges with Danse Macabre for piccolo, violin, cello, piano and percussionCatacombs for clarinet, violin, cello, pianoMoresque for oboe and percussionMarche oublié for violin, cello, piano
  • String Quartet II: Brown Studies Parthenia Violata for violin and pianoPentacle for violin and cello
  • String Quartet III: Inter pares
  • String Quartet IV: Equali Brève for viola solo Marthiya for violin, viola, celloVenthalia for flute/alto-fl/piccolo and pianoQuadripartita for violin, viola, cello, double bassDanse de la terre for violin, viola, cello
  • String Quartet V: Siberia
  • String Quartet VI Scintillae II: Seven Fragments from a Pandemic for violin and piano
PianoOrphica Linoi
  • Piano Sonata No. 1 Triarchia
  • Piano Sonata No. 2 Avatars Contretemps for 2 pianosAfter-Pieces Rahu's Rounds Siris Noctuary Legerdemain Tapestry XIII: The Walling of Ros Raccordement: In memoriam Claude Debussy Scintillae
VocalTristia for soprano and ensembleArchair for soprano and ensemble... e mi sovvien l'eterno... for mixed choirNovember Songs for mezzo and ensemble... una musica riposa for mezzo, oboe, cello, pianoTwo Songs for Paris for mezzo, viola and pianoSo Quiet Now... for soprano, viola and pianoVoices, Receding for soprano and pianoGalar an ghrá/The Disease of Love for low voice and piano5 Roses in 4 Parts for mixed choir
Novel
  • ''Death of a Medium''

Recordings

Based on Klein, with more recent additions, see external links.Avatars, Jimmy Vaughan, on: Goasco GXX003-4.Dekatriad, Irish Chamber Orchestra, Fionnuala Hunt, on: Black Box Music BBM 1013.Quaternion, Krespel's Concerto, Oboe Concerto, National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Colman Pearce, on: .After-Pieces, Seachanges and Catacombs, Marche oublié, String Quartet II: Brown Studies on: Black Box Music BBM 1014.Ripieno, Violin Concerto, Samara, RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Gerhard Markson, on: .Apostille, David Adams, on: .Five Piece Suite, Young European Strings Chamber Orchestra, Ronald Masin, on: .Noctuary Books I and II, Hugh Tinney, on: and .Embers, performed by RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Gerhard Markson, on: .Embers ; Marthiya, performed by Carducci Quartet und Crash Ensemble, on .