Aloys Fleischmann (1880-1964)

If a skilled writer of fiction were to stretch imagination to the limit the resulting narrative could hardly be more fascinating than the real life story told between the covers of this beautifully produced book. But this book contains much more than a family odyssey of sizeable proportions. It also makes an important contribution to modern Irish history and specifically to the history of music in Ireland. One of the central themes in the history of Irish music from the late nineteenth century onwards is the introduction of the great classical European tradition and its cross fertilisation with indigenous traditions. The Catholic Church played a significant role in this process. No native tradition of sacred music had survived penal times. Catholic Emancipation provided the backdrop to the emergence of a self confident and outward looking Catholic Church. Exposure of leading churchmen to the magnificent liturgies of the continental Church created a desire to emulate them. There followed the recruitment by the Hierarchy of continental Church musicians organists and choir masters to organise and oversee sacred music in Irish cathedrals seminaries and the churches of religious orders. Generally these immigrant musicians highly trained in the classical tradition were poorly paid and were compelled to take on private pupils teach music in seminaries secondary colleges and music schools as well as functioning as choir masters or conductors of local choirs and musical societies. Some fifty immigrant musicians were introduced between 1860 and 1960. The first church musician to be appointed to St. Mary s and St. Anne s Cathedral Cork was L opold de Pr ns 1870 . He was followed by a M. de Paine 1889 . Some years earlier in 1879 Hans Conrad Swertz a church organist in Dachau near Munich who had been trained in Regensburg and Rome took up a post in the Vincentian church at Sunday s Well Cork. He replaced Paine as cathedral organist in 1890. In addition to his cathedral duties Swertz taught organ singing composition and advanced harmony in the newly established Cork School of Music and composed and gave recitals. He brought a wife from Dachau and together they produced nine children. His second daughter Matilda Tilly showed promise as a musician and at the age of nineteen 1901 went to the Royal Academy of Music in Munich to further her education. There she met Aloys Fleischmann recently appointed church organist at Dachau who she married in 1905. Fleischmann had already made his mark in Dachau through his Childrens Festival Nativity Plays and his School of Music for orchestral Instruments and the couple could look forward to long and productive professional careers in Germany. However a completely unexpected development was to change the course of their lives. In 1906 Conrad Swertz resigned his post at the Cork cathedral leaving his family to take up an appointment as a church organist in Philadelphia. He was never to return. Part of the explanation for this dramatic step was his rejection of the Papal Instruction of 1903 which excluded women from church choirs and prescribed a return to the plainchant and classical polyphonic music of the 16th and 17th centuries. American bishops had interpreted this Instruction in a manner which permitted women to continue in church choirs. But there must have been other reasons for Swertz s virtual abandonment of his family. It is suggested by Cunningham/Fleischmann that he was in financial difficulties and that his marriage was unhappy. His abrupt departure meant that his wife and eight dependent children all at school or in college were unprovided for. It was against this background that Swertz s son in law resigned his post in Dachau and applied successfully for the Cork cathedral position. Aloys never intended to spend his life in Cork but the storms of war revolution inflation misery and tears made it impossible for him to leave. The birth of an only child a son Aloys g later Professor of Music at University College Cork was a further tie with Ireland. But to the end of his long life he dreamt of the old times of the shadow play of youth of the distant sun of home and experienced the home sickness which accompanies every emigrant until the end of his life . The story of the Fleischmann family presented by Cunningham/Fleischmann mainly from the correspondence between husband and wife and father and son is one of extraordinary tenderness. The most poignant letters were written between 1916 and 1920 during the Great War and its aftermath when Aloys was interned as an alien exile first in Oldcastle Co Meath and later in the Isle of Man. Deeply sensitive the loneliness of these years is writ large in the sparse correspondence permitted him and which survives from this period. The hope that he might be reunited with his beloved wife and son helped him to survive. His understated but deep Christian faith was the other sustaining pillar. As Cunningham/Fleischmann make clear coming from the Munich hinterland a major centre of Europe s musical culture to a small provincial city in southern Ireland more a large market town than a city brought its own kind of isolation. He was able to share his cultural enthusiasms with a handful of local residents such as Daniel Corkery Terence MacSwiney Professor Stockley of U.C.C. and his German wife Germaine and the solicitor J. J. Horgan. But he lacked the stimulation of day to day intercourse with professional peers. As much as two world wars would allow he maintained contact with a handful of Munich based Germans such as the church organist Alois Ritthaler and the poet and historian Franz Schaehle and also with some exiled German musicians such as Joseph Koss of St. Mary s Cathedral Kilkenny. Nonetheless he experienced a significant measure of professional isolation to the end of his days. His contacts with English musicians such as Arnold Bax E. J. Moeran Sir Richard Terry and Herbert Hughes Belfast meant much to him but were sporadic. In 1920 Aloys returned to his cathedral choir Tilly took charge of it during his absence as if he had never been away. His first liturgy was the funeral of the patriot Terence MacSwiney a close personal friend who he had come to know from his contacts with Irish cultural nationalists in the pre war era. The cathedral choir was Aloys great monument. There can be no doubt of the standard of excellence achieved under his direction by that group of forty men and sixty boys in the cathedral liturgies in frequent broadcasts on the Irish radio station and occasionally on the BBC World Service and in concerts given throughout Ireland. Cunningham/Fleischmann provide convincing testimonies from reputable Irish and international critics including Carl Hardebeck Herbert Hughes Richard Terry Arnold Bax Alois Ritthaler and Joseph Koss about the masterly performance of a challenging repertoire. The day to day life of the choir Aloys teaching and conducting techniques his relationships with the choristers are all explored. Accounts are also given of his period of twenty years as a professor in the Cork School of Music and his falling out with that School his teaching duties in St. Finbarr s diocesan seminary and the attention and encouragement he gave to exceptional musical talents. Among his most notable pupils were Pilib O Laoghaire Sean O Riada and of course his son Aloys g. His was a professional life of singular dedication. His work with the Cork Choral Union and with choirs in the Cork hinterland were further testimony to his dedication as was his lengthy struggle ultimately successful to provide the Cork cathedral with an organ worthy of its purpose. Cunningham/Fleischmann address Aloys views on the significance of European art music for Irish culture and the sharp differences on that subject he had with Fr Christoir O Flynn. The latter renowned at bringing Shakespeare to the Cork masses and training actors of high quality in the process rejected the notion that there could be any meaningful cross fertilization between traditional Irish music the sean n s tradition and the European tradition. Aloys argued for a compatibility between the two and proved his point in the musical arrangements which he created for his choirs and ensembles. His son Aloys was to share his father s conviction and his remarkable creative achievements in this regard have been comprehensively documented in S amas de Barra s book Aloys Fleischman Field Day Publications 2006 . A noteworthy feature in the current book is the quality of the research. The absence of any records relating to Aloys in the archives of St. Finbarr s Seminary where he taught for almost forty years is a disappointment but otherwise the source material is voluminous and well organized. It is particularly gratifying therefore that the authors were willing to write this book strictly from the sources avoiding the conjecture hearsay and partisan judgement so often found in biographies of this nature. It is clear too that this book benefited from a proper division of labours critical for the success of any collaborative work . In this case most of the research was conducted by Joseph Cunningham while Dr. Ruth Fleischmann who also translated the German texts was responsible for most of the writing. The contributions of the three German scholars are in the nature of useful short appendices. The analysis of the music of Aloys Fleischmann and the annotated catalogue of his compositions provided by the distinguished Irish musicologist S amas de Barra function as two substantial appendices. As a result the finished work possesses a unity of style rare in a collaborative study of this nature. And Dr. Fleischmann s style is particularly lucid and pleasing. The choice of de Barra to analyse Aloys creative work his Dachau nativity plays his vocal and choral compositions both sacred and secular his arrangements and instrumental music further ensures the status of the book as a significant addition to Irish musicology. De Barra s perceptive study of the life and music of Aloys the son inevitably led him to a profound understanding of Aloys the father. By the same token the general reader will find the book in its entirety most rewarding as a chronicle of a remarkable family and an absorbing account of the times. ~Dr E.M. Hogan

It is impossible in a short notice to do justice to the archival depth and cultural contextualisation that enhance and fortify this splendid biography. Suffi ce it to say that the composer s own correspondence provides much evidence of a lively and deeply engaged relationship not only with his wife and son but also with many leading fi gures of Irish cultural and political life including Daniel Corkery and the MacSwiney family as well as with any number of German migr s and other visiting musicians among them Herbert Hughes and E. J. Moeran . As an immigrant musician in Ireland Aloys Fleischmann profoundly enriched the cultural complexion of his adopted country. ~Harry White Irish Historical Studies