Joan Trimble
Joan Trimble (18 June 1915 – 6 August 2000) was an Irish composer and pianist, and one of the most distinguished musicians to come from Ulster in the 20th century. She studied at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music in London, and she and her sister performed for many years as a celebrated piano duo. In later years she inherited her father's newspaper and became its proprietor and editor.
Education and career
Joan Trimble was born in
Joan studied composition with
Joan composed a total of twenty-four works in a creative career of twenty years, sixteen of them in the period 1937-1943, including Buttermilk Point (1938), settings of Irish folksong (1939-40), and the Sonatina for Two Pianos (1940);
In 1957, the BBC commissioned an
Between 1959 and 1977 Trimble was professor of accompaniment and musicianship at the Royal College of Music,[3] for ten years after 1967 commuting between London and Enniskillen.
Joan Trimble married in June 1942 in London, John Greenwood Gant (1917–2000),[10] a Royal Army Medical Corps officer,[4] with whom she had a son and two daughters.[3]
Piano duo
Trimble first gained notice performing in a piano duo with her sister Valerie. Their partnership had a long and distinguished history,
During the second world war, the sisters worked as volunteer nurses for the
The sisters also performed modern music, including works by Stravinsky, Dallapiccola, Arthur Bliss and Lennox Berkeley, and they continued to perform in public until 1970. [14]
Honours
Trimble was honoured by the Royal College of Music in 1960 and by Queen's University Belfast in 1983. From 1981 to 1985 she was on the board of Ulster Television, and from 1983 to 1988 she was a member of the advisory committee of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. In 1985 she received the rarely-bestowed fellowship of the Royal Irish Academy of Music.[3] Also in 1985, BBC Radio 3 broadcast a concert to celebrate her 70th birthday, which included the first performance since 1957 of her composition for baritone and two pianos, The County Mayo.[15]
In 1990, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland commissioned Three Diversions for Wind Quintet from her for her 75th birthday.[5]
Musical style
Joan Trimble's music was conservative for her time and was always well crafted. She had a deep and scholarly interest in Irish traditional music and there was an innate Irish quality to her writing.[3]
Her work combined the impressionist harmonic language she had learned since her studies with Annie Lord with melodic and rhythmic inflections derived from Irish traditional music. Her arrangements of Irish traditional airs for two pianos did not differ stylistically from her original compositions. She said that she wrote her music with regard neither to schools nor period. "Shape and form, rhythm and clarity, as well as freedom of expression, are all important. I am free to be myself regardless of fashion."[4]
Her most advanced music was contained in the Sonatina for two pianos (1940) and the impressive song cycle The County Mayo (1949). The Irish idiom which informed her distinctive style gave her music a rhythmic and rhapsodic quality, and her compositions conveyed something of the colour and clarity of French music. [5]
Later life and death
After the death of her father in 1967, she became managing director of the family firm and took over the running of his newspaper, The Impartial Reporter, in Enniskillen, the fourth generation of her family to do so. She remained its proprietor and editor until her death, when she was succeeded by her daughter.[3]
She was an active managing director, in the ten years after 1967 commuting between London, where she was teaching, and Enniskillen; and she became involved in local journalism and wrote for the paper, including a weekly column devoted to the history of the district.[4] In 1977, she retired from her position at the Royal College of Music to concentrate on the Reporter. [3]
She gained fresh attention in the 1990s when she was commissioned for a new composition[16] and the first recordings of her music appeared. She died in Enniskillen on 6 August 2000, at the age of 85,[3] two weeks after the death of her husband.[17][18]
Legacy
In 2002, the Joan Trimble Awards Scheme was established by her family in her memory, and administered by the Fermanagh Trust "in recognition of her lifelong commitment to County Fermanagh". The purpose of the scheme was to encourage and support the involvement of young people in creativity, the performing arts and Irish culture, and to provide bursaries for training and education.[19]
In 2012, Fermanagh County Museum staged an exhibition titled "Buttermilk Point: The Musical Life of Joan Trimble, 1915–2000". [3]
On 18 June 2015, "Music in Fermanagh" presented A Celebration Concert as part of the Joan Trimble Centenary Celebration at the Ardhowen Theatre in Enniskillen.[20][21]
Works
List derived from Jamieson (2013), see Bibliography.
Opera
Orchestra
Chamber Music
|
Music for two pianos
Songs
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Recordings
- Celtic Keyboards: Duets by Irish Composers, performed by Bruce Posner & Donald Garvelmann (pianos), on: Koch International Classics 3-7287-2 H1 (CD, 1994). Contains: Sonatina, The Gartan Mother's Lullaby, The Heather Glen, The Bard of Lisgoole, Buttermilk Point, The Green Bough, The Humours of Carrick.
- Silver Apples of the Moon – Irish Classical Music, performed by Irish Chamber Orchestra, Fionnuala Hunt (cond.), on: Black Box Music BBM 1003 (CD, 1997). Contains: Suite for Strings.
- Joan Trimble: Two Pianos – Songs and Chamber Music, performed by Patricia Bardon (mezzo), Joe Corbett (baritone), Una Hunt (piano), Roy Holmes (piano), Dublin Piano Trio, on: Marco Polo 8.225059 (CD, 1999). Contains: The Cows are a-milking, A Gartan Mother's Lullaby, The Heather Glen, My Grief on the Sea, Green Rain, Girl's Song, Sonatina, Pastorale (Hommage à F. Poulenc), Phantasy Trio, Puck Fair, The Green Bough, The County Mayo, Buttermilk Point, The Bard of Lisgoole, The Humours of Carrick.
- Phantasy Trio, performed by Fidelio Trio, on: RTÉ lyric fm CD 153 (CD, 2016).
- The Pool Among the Rushes, performed by John Finucane (clarinet) and Elisaveta Blumina (piano), on: Genuin GEN 18495 (CD, 2018).
- Green Rain; Girl's Song; My Grief on the Sea, performed by Carolyn Dobbin (mezzo) & Iain Burnside (piano), on: Delphian Records DCD 34187 (CD, 2018).
Bibliography
- Philip Hammond: "Woman of Parts: Joan Trimble", in: Soundpost 5 (1984–85), p. 24–7.
- "Joan Trimble", in: Contemporary Music Review 9 (1994), pp. 277–84.
- Axel Klein: Die Musik Irlands im 20. Jahrhundert (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1996).
- Lisa McCarroll: The Celtic Twilight as Reflected in the Two-Piano Works of Joan Trimble (1915–2000) (DMA dissertation, Moores School of Music, University of Houston, 2013).
- Ruth Stanley: Joan Trimble (1915–2000) and the Issue of her 'Irish' Musical Identity (MA thesis, Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, 2003; unpublished).
- Alasdair Jamieson: "Trimble, Joan" and "Trimble, Valerie", in: The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland, ed. by Harry White & Barra Boydell (Dublin: UCD Press, 2013), pp. 1008–09.
- Alasdair Jamieson: Music in Northern Ireland. Two Major Figures: Havelock Nelson (1917–1996) and Joan Trimble (1915–2000) (Tolworth, Surrey: Grosvenor House Publishing, 2017); ISBN 978-1-78623-977-8.
References
- ^ Ireland Civil Registration Births Index 1864-1958: Joan TRIMBLE; Sept quarter 1915, Enniskillen; vol 2, pg. 57.
- ^ Ireland Civil Registration Births Index 1864-1958: Marie DOWSE, June quarter 1887, Dublin; vol 2, p673. ('Maria' in index)
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Pine, Richard; Acton, Charles (15 August 2000). "Obituary: Joan Trimble". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 June 2023.
- ^ a b c d e f g h "Dictionary of Ulster Biography: Joan Trimble, Musician; newspaper proprietor, 1915–2000". Retrieved 26 June 2023.
- ^ a b c d e "Grove Music Online: Trimble, Joan; published 2001". Retrieved 27 June 2023.
- ^ Klein (1996), p. 466; see Bibliography.
- ^ . Retrieved 29 July 2023.
- ^ "Grove Music: Trimble, Joan". 2001. Retrieved 27 June 2023.
- ^ Radio Times Issue 1749, 19 May 1957, pp. 6, 17, bbc.co.uk. Accessed 16 December 2020.
- ^ FreeBmd [1] GRO Marriage Indexes England & Wales 1916–2007; June quarter 1942, Chelsea, 1a 839; TRIMBLE, Joan marr. GANT, John G.
- ^ Jamieson (2013), p. 1008; see Bibliography.
- ^ "Talk given by Irish Composer Joan Trimble, 1983". Retrieved 29 July 2023.
- ^ "Talk given by Irish Composer Joan Trimble, 1983". Retrieved 29 July 2023.
- ^ Alex Burns. "Joan Trimble: The Green Bough". Retrieved 13 November 2023.
- ^ "Talk given by Irish Composer Joan Trimble, 1983". Retrieved 29 July 2023.
- ^ Joan Trimble Obituary, the Daily Telegraph, www.telegraph.co.uk, accessed 16 December 2020.
- ^ "Announcements: Deaths". The Daily Telegraph. 26 July 2000. p. 28.
- ^ "Obituary: Joan Trimble". The Daily Telegraph. 12 August 2000. p. 25.
- ^ "The Fermanagh Trust Joan Trimble Awards". Retrieved 29 July 2023.
- ^ "THE JOAN TRIMBLE CENTENARY CELEBRATION: A Celebration Concert". Discovernorthernireland.com. 23 February 2015. Archived from the original on 9 June 2015. Retrieved 18 June 2015.
- ^ Baron, Alexander (11 June 2015). "The Joan Trimble Centenary". The Latest News. Retrieved 18 June 2015.
- ^ "The Fermanagh Trust Joan Trimble Awards". Retrieved 29 July 2023.
External links
- Profile at Contemporary Music Centre, Dublin.