24. Some playfulness, some charm, and a triumph.

Ray Fawn Williams and Benjamin Britton. Most likely because he confined himself to predominantly miniature works, especially for the piano. And with no symphonies or operas to his name, his legacy was always going to be an uphill battle. Happily it's gaining traction. Ireland did not have a happy childhood. His publisher father, on his second marriage, was 69 when Ireland was born to a mother thirty years younger than her husband. With a gap like that, he'll be forgiven for expecting her to get in at least one more spouse. His father followed her the following year. The impression you get is that of a lost soul. But the man had talent enough to go to the Royal Academy, where many years later he taught Britain, who was, in his own way, typically disparaging about him. His personal life was a struggle too. In haste, he married a 17-year-old pupil, but far from repenting at leisure, they were divorced with equal haste and without consummation. Tchaikovsky did the same sort of thing, and it's widely recognised that Ireland's tendencies were similar to the great man. Despite his internal struggles, he has left some brilliant lovely music. Many will be familiar with the hymn My Song Is Love Unknown, a personal favorite, for which Ireland composed the music. He was organist at both St. Luke's in Chelsea and Holy Trinity's Lanes Square in London. His music comes under the banner of English Impressionism. The Downland Suite was composed for a brass band competition in 1932. It didn't win, and has since been transcribed for strings. This third movement, the minuet, is possibly the most famous. There's nothing gushing about this, and it could so easily have been written by Elgar. It's in praise of the countryside, especially Sussex, where Ireland is buried. This is charm of English music at its purest best. It's played here by the English string orchestra conducted by William Barton. The first grand opera I went to was Aida. Although, of course, I didn't realise it at the time, it had a truly star-studdied cast, including Placido Domingo and the sensational Monster Cavalier, whom many of you will remember joining Freddie Mercury in the opening ceremony of the Barcelona Olympics. For those of you letting out a groan right now, don't worry, we're not going to listen to the much overplayed triumphal march, but a very testing aria. Within minutes of the curtain going up, and with barely any time for a decent warm-up, Verdi throws his male lead Radame straight into the deep end with this punishing aria in praise of Aida. It's fair to say that this is a make or break moment, which will establish the fate of its singer for the rest of the opera. In 2006 at La Scala Milan, Roberto Alanya decided not to wait for the rest of the opera. Seconds after he had finished his top note on only the second night, his performance was not deemed up to scratch by the infamously critical audience in that house, and he was roundly booed. So he threw his teddies out of the cot and walked off. To make matters worse, his first attempt to exit was blocked, so he had to turn around and leave by the other side. The next appearance of the role was immediately taken up by the understudy, who was quite understandably not expecting to come on the stage at such short notice. So arrived with a dress code which was a very long way off, the Egyptian theme of the opera. Franco Corelli was another of those great lyric tenors of the twentieth century with a long and successful career, which has since been dwarfed by the commercialisation of the three tenors. Here he is singing this opening aria, Celestia, Heavenly Aida. This is a tough number to make your mark. It finishes on a very high note, and Corelli puts his seal on it by pulling off the most sublime softening after reaching it.

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