The afterlife of a tradition: European music and Irish literature in the nineteenth century

Abstract

The presence of Irish literature in European art music of the nineteenth century has never been adequately explored. This presence, exemplified by Robert Schumann’s setting of Thomas Moore’s poem, Lalla Rookh (Das Paradies und die Peri, 1843), should be distinguished from the earlier practice of such composers as Beethoven, who simply arranged traditional Irish melodies for voice and piano.