Rhoda Sinclair Coghill (14 October 1903 – 9 February 2000) was an Irish pianist, composer and poet.

Biography

Rhoda Coghill was born in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...

and studied from the age of eight with Patricia Read at the Leinster School of Music. Between 1913 and 1925 she won 21 prizes at the Feis Ceoil (Irish music competition), among them first prizes for piano solo, piano accompaniment and piano duet, after 1923 for composition. In that year she completed her largest score, the rhapsody ''Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking'' for tenor solo, mixed chorus and orchestra, to a text by

Walt Whitman Walter Whitman (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among ...

. Coghill also played double bass in the orchestras of the Dublin Philharmonic Society and Radio Éireann. She continued her piano studies with

Arthur Schnabel Arthur Schnabel (16 September 1948 – 22 October 2018) was a German judoka. He won a bronze medal in the Open division at the 1984 Summer Olympics. He also competed at the 1976 Summer Olympics Events January * January 3 – The ...

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

(1927-8) to whom she had been recommended by

Fritz Brase Friedrich Wilhelm Anton Brase, known as Fritz Brase (; 4 May 1875 – 1 December 1940), was a German military bandmaster, conductor, and composer who was mainly active in Dublin, Ireland, as leader of the first Army School of Music in the Iri ...

. In 1939 she took a position as the accompanist of Radio Éireann, where she remained until 1969. In this capacity she has worked with major performers of her day, both Irish and international, and gave exemplary interpretations of contemporary Irish works. She was known for remarkable

sight-reading In music, sight-reading, also called ''a prima vista'' (Italian meaning "at first sight"), is the practice of reading and performing of a piece in a music notation that the performer has not seen or learned before. Sight-singing is used to descr ...

capacities and her absolute ear. She also appeared as a concerto soloist, reliably attracting large audiences. Coghill stopped composing in the early 1940s, concentrating on her performing career, but began writing and translating poetry (three publications between 1948 and 1958). It has been suggested that a reason for this re-orientation may have been that in the poetry and literature-dominated perception of Irish culture it was easier to receive acknowledgements as a poet rather than as a composer. Coghill remained unmarried and spent her late years from 1982 at Westfield House, Morehampton Road, Dublin, where she died aged 96. Her music manuscripts as well as some notebooks and diaries are located in

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

, Dublin (MS 11111).

Music

The rhapsody ''Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking'' is one of the most forward-looking Irish compositions in the first half of the twentieth century. Written during the Civil War in Ireland in 1923, it was first performed in a small format, with a small orchestra and a vocal quartet replacing the chorus, in the 1950s; the first performance did not take place before 1990. Up to this time, Coghill had never heard an orchestra, but had a good knowledge of orchestral music from studying scores. The work is set for tenor solo, mixed chorus and orchestra, is in one continuous movement of about 23 to 25 minutes duration. The text is based on a poem of the same title by Walt Whitman. The work is remarkable for its unconventional tenor line (resembling the irregular metre of the poetry), the use of whole-tone scales, and its overall serious expression and emotional drama. One of the reasons why she didn't write more orchestral music or why she didn't promote the score for so long may also lie in her modesty as a practising Quaker. Her songs show a sensitive and skilled hand in setting words, be it in folksong arrangements or in original compositions. Some are quite distinct, showing a somewhat introspective, atmospheric voice. Her only published piano composition, the ''Gaelic Phantasy'' (1939), plays with elements of Irish traditional music in an original manner. For the print with An Gúm (Irish government publisher) she was forced to smooth out some chromatic harmonies that she had originally intended.

Selected compositions

Works with orchestra * ''Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking'' (Walt Whitman), rhapsody for tenor solo, chorus and orchestra (1923) * ''Gaelic Phantasy''. Arrangement of piano work (c.1935) for piano and orchestra (1972) Songs (for voice and piano) * ''A Song of St. Francis'' (A. Neville Maugham) (1921) * ''I Love All Beauteous Things'' (

Robert Bridges Robert Seymour Bridges (23 October 1844 – 21 April 1930) was an English poet who was Poet Laureate from 1913 to 1930. A doctor by training, he achieved literary fame only late in life. His poems reflect a deep Christian faith, and he is ...

) (1924) * ''I Will not Let Thee Go'' (

) (1924) * ''Mary Moriarty'' ( Winifred M. Letts) (1925) * ''Jenny'' (

Leigh Hunt James Henry Leigh Hunt (19 October 178428 August 1859), best known as Leigh Hunt, was an English critic, essayist and poet. Hunt co-founded '' The Examiner'', a leading intellectual journal expounding radical principles. He was the centre ...

) (1925) * ''Creeveen Cno'' (''A Little Cluster of Nuts'') (

Patrick Joseph McCall Patrick Joseph McCall (6 March 1861 – 8 March 1919) was an Irish songwriter and poet, known mostly as the author of lyrics for popular ballads. He was assisted in putting the Wexford ballads, dealing with the 1798 Rising, to music by Arthur ...

) (1924), Dublin: Pigott & Co., 1925. * ''Messages'' (

Francis Thompson Francis Joseph Thompson (16 December 1859 – 13 November 1907) was an English poet and Catholic mystic. At the behest of his father, a doctor, he entered medical school at the age of 18, but at 26 left home to pursue his talent as a writer a ...

) (1925) * ''Among the Heather''. Old Irish Air arr. ( William Allingham) (1926), Dublin: Pigott & Co., 1926. * ''Peasant Woman's Song'' ( Dion Boucicault) (1926) * ''Five Poems by Pádraic Colum'' (set to Irish traditional melodies) (1923–26). Contains: ''In the Fore of the Year'', ''Once I Loved a Maiden fair'', ''The Hawk-Questing Maid'', ''The Old Woman of the Roads'', ''I'll Bring You These for Dowry''. * ''Meg Merrilees'' (

John Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculos ...

) (1927) * ''Erster Schnee'' (Otto Siepmann, transl. by Coghill) (1931) * ''Four Poems by Æ'' ( George Russell) (1941). Contains: ''Refuge'', ''Parting'', ''When'', ''Germinal''. * ''The Might of Love'' (''We Live in Hope of Seeing'') (A.J. Hilty, transl. by Coghill) for unison mixed voices and piano (n.d.), published in ''Quaker Song Book'', ed. by John Sheldon (London: Stainer & Bell, 1981), . Piano music * ''Four Piano Pieces for Children'' (''When Childher Plays'') (1926). * ''Gaelic Phantasy'' (c.1935), published as ''Saoirdhréacht Gaedhealach do’n Phiano'' (Dublin: An Gúm, 1942).

Recording

* ''Gaelic Phantasy'', performed by Deborah Grimmett: New Classics Records NC01 (CD & downloads, 2021).

Poetry

Coghill's poetry "reflect a sensitivity to nature, a belief in simplicity and a deep Christian faith. Although stylistically advanced, she made occasional use of various rhyme techniques." In the introduction to her first collection (1948), Seumas O'Sullivan wrote that Coghill's expressiveness would "eventually give their author full title to a place amongst the poets of our time". She was represented in the first Field Day anthology of Irish women writers (2002).Angela Bourke et al (eds.): ''The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing'', vol. iv: ''Irish Women's Writing and Traditions'' (Cork: Cork University Press, 2002). *''The Bright Hillside'' (Dublin: Hodges, Figgis & Co., 1948) *''Time is a Squirrell'' (Dublin: The Dolmen Press, 1956) *''Angel Songs''/''Engellieder''. Translated by Rhoda Coghill from the German of Rainer Maria Rilke (Dublin: The Dolmen Press, 1958)

Bibliography

*Axel Klein: ''Die Musik Irlands im 20. Jahrhundert'' (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1996), . *Richard Pine: ''Music and Broadcasting in Ireland'' (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005), (hardback), (paperback). *Laura Watson: "Epitaph for a Musician: Rhoda Coghill as Pianist, Composer and Poet", in ''Journal of the Society for Musicology in Ireland'', 11 (2015–16), pp. 3–23; http://eprints.maynoothuniversity.ie/7652/.

External links

*Profile a
Contemporary Music Centre, Dublin

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coghill, Rhoda 1903 births 2000 deaths 20th-century classical composers 20th-century classical pianists 20th-century Irish poets 20th-century women composers Irish classical composers Irish classical pianists Irish women classical composers Irish Quakers Musicians from Dublin (city) Women classical pianists 20th-century Quakers 20th-century women pianists