Spot The Irish In Stanford’s Irish Symphony

Wednesday, 13^th of May 2026

#Stanford #IrishSymphony #orchestra #LondonRepertoireOrchestra #Comhluadar #HomeFromHome #IrishPresidencyEU 

We had fun playing through Stanford’s Irish Symphony tonight. London Repertoire Orchestra is always up for new repertoire and no one had played the Irish Symphony before – a complete change from Mozart Symphony no.40 three weeks ago, which everyone knew. 

Spoiler alert: the true Irish only comes through in the last movement. Actually, ‘spot the Brahms’ scores more hits than ‘spot the Irish’. The opening movement is pure Brahms. The 2^nd movement is an Irish slip jig, with a symphonic treatment more like Brahms’ Hungarian Dances. Stanford actually quotes from Brahms 4^th Symphony (2^nd movement) in his 3^rd movement – first in the violas, then the horns, then the whole orchestra. The 3^rd movement is a beautiful ballade with an exquisite clarinet duet (accompanied by harp – concert harp not Irish harp) and a luscious Brahmsian melody on low strings, horns and clarinets. It’s only in the last movement that we get real Irish tunes – Remember The Glories of Brian the Brave and Let Erin Remember The Days Of Old. Both hark back to Ireland’s glory days, beating the English! Let Erin Remember is the regimental slow march of the Irish Guards. In the Irish Symphony, it takes centre stage as a brass chorale bringing the symphony to a triumphant finale. 

As a composer, I am fascinated by what Stanford does here. He wants to be patriotically Irish, but he wants it to sound like Brahms, not a session in an Irish pub. I currently have Mo Ghile Maer and The Parting Song going round in my head as the starting point for Comhluadar (Home From Home), a piece for the Irish Presidency of the EU. I don’t know yet how it’s going to end up. I’m at that scary / thrilling stage of sounds coming into focus, then morphing into something else and reappearing as a full orchestral texture, with the Irish harp in radiant counterpoint.