Peter Whelan

All Softly Playing

Early music beloved by James Joyce

Goldie Chapel, Nano Nagle Place
Thursday 16th October, 2025, 6pm
Tickets: €18 / €15

Malcolm Proud – harpsichord
Susan Proud – narrator
Stuart Kinsella – tenor

Book tickets

Programme

This special performance delves into the early music that resonated with Ireland’s most legendary writer. Inspired by his reading of the “Eumeaus” episode, where Stephen Dedalus enthuses to Bloom about the early music of John Dowland and other composers, Malcolm Proud has meticulously curated this recital featuring music either alluded to or known to have been cherished by Joyce.

In 1904 Joyce contacted Arnold Dolmetsch, a pioneer of early music, with the intention of acquiring a lute so that he could tour the South of England singing old English songs to his own lute accompaniment. Later Joyce would take singing lessons in Conservatorio di Musica di Trieste with the Triestine maestro Romeo Bartoli who was a specialist in early music.

It’s a particular pleasure to present this concert in Nano Nagle Place where Joyce’s Cork familial connections run strong. John Stanislaus Joyce, his father, was baptised in South Parish church and prepared for his first communion by the Presentation sisters of South Presentation. Before the concert you can also visit the grave of Sister Mary Xavier at Nano Nagle place – born Alicia O’Connell and John Joyce’s aunt. She and his mother Ellen O’Connell both joined the Presentation Sisters, although Ellen decided she was not called to the religious life, fortunately for John and his descendants.

Join us for an unforgettable journey through the musical landscape of the 16th and 17th centuries that once fueled Joyce’s imagination, within the landscape that shaped his family.

“Proud is also something of a musical visionary. His steady vision allows him to communicate music with an unusual sense of inevitability, giving the impression that he has captured and can convey the essence of what he’s playing with unusual fixity.”

Irish Times

Works

Pastime with Good Company – Henry VII (1491-1547)

Flow my tears – John Dowland (1562-1626)

Nobodyes Gigue – Richard Farnaby (c1594-1623)

Loth to depart – Elizabethan song
Loth to depart – G. Farnaby (c.1563-1640)

Toy – attrib. Thomas Tomkins (1572-1656)

How should I your true love know – song sung by Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet
Walsingham – William Byrd (1543-1623)

Mein junges leben hat ein End – German folk song
Mein junges leben hat ein End – Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621)

Von der Sirenen Listigkeit/Tun die Poeten dichten – Johann Jeep (c. 1582-1644)

Tu se’ morta – Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)