Stanfordian Thoughts
A periodical series of reflections on recorded and unrecorded works by Charles Villiers Stanford
by Christopher Howell

28. Shamus O’Brien in North America

After an absence of many decades, Shamus O’Brien is back in the news with a well-received recording under David Parry. Of the two reviews in MWI, John Quinn found much to praise and some room for doubt, while Jonathan Woolf found much to doubt and a few things to praise. I have no intention to pit one against the other, let alone take sides with Stanford against both of them. The object of this article is to examine the critical reception of Shamus during its brief period of limelight in North America in 1897-99. Interestingly, many of the doubts that have surfaced today were already expressed more than a century-and-a-quarter ago. Where different slants emerge, these may reflect changing tastes, but it is worth remembering that my MWI colleagues had only an audio recording to go on, while the American critics had seen Shamus on stage. So far as is possible, I have let the story tell itself through extracts from newspapers and magazines of the day.

Read the full article in pdf format here. A link list for the previous articles in this series is provided here.