英国の作曲家、ジョン・ニコルソン・アイアランド（John Nicholson Ireland）は１８７９年８月１３日にマンチェスターの近く、ボードン（Bowdon）に生まれる。彼の両親は文学に精通しており、父のアレクサンダーは新聞社の経営者、そして母のアンは作家であり批評家でもあった。又、母自身の父も東洋言語博士だった事もあり、アイアランドは幼い頃から文学に囲まれて育った。父が七十歳、そして母が四十歳の時の子供で、音楽に深く関心のあった母の影響を受け幼い頃からピアノ、オルガン、ヴァイオリンを習う。兄弟は姉が三人と兄が一人、一番年の近い三女のエーセルとは六歳違う。兄との関係は良くなかったようで、兄弟との幼少時代のつらい思い出を語っている。
１８９３年、アイアランドが十四歳の時に自らの意思で英国王立音楽大学（Royal College of Music）の入学試験を受け見事合格する。入学してすぐ母が亡くなり、その翌年に父も亡くなるという不幸が続く。入学した時点での彼の専攻はピアノであり、フレデリック・クリフに師事した。副科にオルガンを専攻しウォルター・パラットに師事、又、和声も勉強した。作曲も行ったが、この頃の多くの作品は満足できる物ではなかったために、自ら処分した。１８９７年、同大学から奨学金を受けて、ホルストやヴォーン・ウィリアムズの師でもある英国の偉大な作曲家、チャールズ・スタンフォードの弟子になり、作曲の勉強に力を注ぐ。彼の初期の作風はスタンフォードの影響を受け、ドイツ古典・ロマン派の要素が多く伺える。アイアランドが初めて重要と考えた作品は「ピアノトリオのためのファンタジー」（１９０６年又は１９０７年）と自ら語っている。
アイアランドの作風を一言で語る事はとても難しいと学者たちの間では考えられている。彼が生きた時代はロマン派の巨匠、晩年のブラームスが現存している傍ら、作曲家が新しい作風を求め、印象主義等に影響された時代である。又、彼の作品は時、場所、人間、そして文学と深く関系しているために、作品の重要な要素がそれぞれ異なる。そうして異なったものが、時代の様式と混ざり表現されているために一つ一つの作品が独創的である。アイアランドはこの自由な独自の表現が最も生かされる簡素な形式と美しいメロディーを用いた様式を好み、主にピアノの小品と歌曲を書いた。彼の多くのピアノ作品には深く興味のあった超自然的な詩や小説からの引用が添えられており、演奏家の想像力をかき立てる。アイアランドが好んだ詩人には、ハーディー、ハウスマン、ロセッティ兄弟、シモンズがあげられ、特にアーサー・マッケンの怪奇小説に深く影響を受けた。アイアランドの唯一はっきりとした作風の転機を述べるとすると、１９１３年があげられる。この年に書かれた連作歌曲、「マリゴールド：印象」（Marigold: An Impression）とピアノ組曲、「装飾」（Decorations）では、象徴的な詩に影響された印象主義の要素が明確に映されている。ドイツロマン派の作風から離れ、特に「装飾」では、ドビッシーとラヴェルの影響が伺える。
長い間ロンドンのチェルシーに住み、王立音楽大学で教務をとった。弟子にはブリテンやモエランがあげられる。又、チャネル諸島のガーンジー島とジャージー島をこよなく愛し、その神秘的な景観に魅了されていた。晩年は１９６２年に亡くなるまでサセックスに住む。彼が愛したこれらの地域は彼の作品に反映している。
アイアランドは自作品のピアニスト、指揮者としても活躍し、その録音を大英図書館で視聴することができる。
参考文献
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博士論文 John Ireland’s piano works : towards an informed performance より
Introduction: Inspiration and an approach towards an informed performance
‘All written music needs ‘interpretation”, and ‘a musical score awaits realisation in sound’.1 It is apparent that it is the performer who accomplishes this task, and the process and the result of the duty rely on the performer’s decisions completely. Therefore, the performance will not represent much if the performer does not take the trouble to understand the composer and his implied intentions, preferring to use the work as a vehicle to display only their splendid technique and their own arbitrary expression; Rothstein calls this, ‘playing with the work rather than playing the work.’2
John Ireland (1879–1962) was a composer who was never in any doubt as to the interpretation of his own work. He even wished a performance had never taken place at all if it had been played faster than he intended.3 This thesis will therefore approach the piano music of John Ireland thoughtfully in an attempt to create an informed performance of the works in a way, which realises and appreciates Ireland’s explicit and implicit intentions.
My first encounter with English piano music was …
(省略)
While my main concern was to be the primary sources and their realisation, it would not have been possible to approach this study without a thorough understanding of the secondary literature. This includes biographical studies such as John Ireland: Portrait of a Friend (1969)4 by John Longmire and John Ireland: The Man and His Music (1979)5 by Muriel Searle, a revised catalogue of works, John Ireland: A Catalogue, Discography, and Bibliography (2007)6 by Stewart Craggs, articles and chapters by Stephen Banfield, Geoffrey Bush, Peter Crossley-Holland, Barbara Docherty, Edwin Evans, Ralph Hill, Frank Howes, Hugh Ottaway, Christopher Palmer, Eric Parkin, Alan Rowlands, Colin Scott-Sutherland and Nigel Townshend,7 and two Doctoral dissertations by William Donald Rankin8 and Fiona Richards9 respectively. Richards’s recent book, The Music of John Ireland (2000),10 originally her doctoral thesis, represents the most scholarly treatment of the composer to date. However, there has been no attempt to undertake performance-based research on Ireland’s music until now.
Performance practice of twentieth-century repertoire is a relatively new perspective for music studies, having now become in Robert Philips’s words ‘a respectable academic field’.11 Moreover, it is ‘perhaps the most developed area of empirical musicology.’12 It departs from the traditional score-confined research, and it can involve the empirical method of examining recordings. Recent musicological interest in the history of recordings has tried to analyse ‘how our modern styles and approaches have developed’13 during the twentieth century. As a result, several questions have been raised examining the relationship between performance practice and theory, and the extent to which the test of authenticity might be met, or at least approached in a meaningful way. Accepting this musicological context, my research therefore aims to achieve an informed interpretation of Ireland’s piano music based on the premise that the theoretical study can affect the performance. Two methods have been applied for this approach; first, seeking out and understanding Ireland’s performing tradition which involves, among other things, the empirical examination of Ireland’s recorded materials, and my analysis of these as a performer; secondly, investigating the relationship between Ireland’s piano music and literature. John Rink has noted that ‘the performer of nineteenth-century music can bring the score to life as a narrator of the expressive message inherent therein’,14 and I believe that the performer of Ireland’s piano music can become a narrator of his expressive message in the same way.