Lyric Feature Preview: 200 years ago, in 1817, Irish poet, singer, songwriter, and entertainer Thomas Moore published a work that was an immediate best-seller. But this wasn’t his Irish Melodies. Not a minstrel boy or a last rose of summer to be seen.
His new epic was Lalla Rookh: An Oriental Romance, a tale of Arabian princesses, adventure and the exotic East.
Listen to An Oriental Romance: Thomas Moore's Lalla Rookh below:
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The book recounts the journey of a princess, Lalla Rookh, to meet her future husband. Along the way, Scheherazade-style, a handsome young poet tells her a series of four tales. If you’ve ever read a fairy tale, you might guess what happens at the end when the poet’s true identity is revealed…
Listen Below: Dr Daniel Roberts, Reader in English at Queen’s University, Belfast reads from Thomas Moore’s poem Lalla Rookh. The music is by Félicien David.
Lalla Rookh has been largely forgotten, but at the time it was a cultural phenomenon, repeatedly reprinted, translated into various languages, and it proved to be the source of inspiration for painters, playwrights and, above all, composers, including Robert Schumann, Charles Villiers Stanford, Félicien David and many others.
This week’s Lyric Feature, in its new slot of Sunday at 6 pm, tells the story of Lalla Rookh and the music it inspired. The programme is presented and produced by Claire Cunningham, and made in collaboration with the Horizon 2020-funded project ERIN - Europe’s Reception of the Irish Melodies and National Airs: Thomas Moore in Europe.

The contributors to the programme are: Dr Tríona O’Hanlon, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research Fellow in the School of Creative Arts (Music), Queen’s University Belfast; Dr Sarah McCleave, historical musicologist at the School of Music, QUB; Dr Daniel Roberts, Reader in English at QUB; Siobhán Fitzpatrick, librarian at the Royal Irish Academy; Sinead Campbell-Wallace, singing tutor at DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama in Dublin; Gerry Long, assistant keeper in the Department of Special Collections, National Library of Ireland and Anja Bunzel, author of a Master’s thesis on Robert Schumann.
Mezzo sopranos Martha O’Brien and Helen Aiken, pianists Aoife O’Sullivan and Jenny Garrett, and flautists Poppy Wheeler and Ciara Jackson also perform some rare musical works inspired by Moore’s poem.
An Oriental Romance: Thomas Moore's Lalla Rookh, RTÉ lyric fm on Sunday 10 September, at 6 pm - listen back after broadcast here.