Frederick May: Sunlight and Shadow performed by the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and conducted byRobert Houlihan, marks the first significant orchestral release of the music ofone of the most important figures in Irish music during the mid-20^thcentury. The release has been timed to coincide with the 100^thanniversary of May’s birth. According to his contemporary Brian Boydell, ‘…he ledthe way for so many of us’. Frederick May looked to Europe for inspiration,representing the forward looking group of Irish composers active from the 1930sin contrast to the increasing cultural isolationism cultivated by the leadersof the young Republic at that time.

Oneof May’s finest achievements was his Songsfrom Prison, a moving and disturbing reflection on the dangers facingindividual freedom under the threat of Nazism in the 1930s. Influenced by thetime he spent in Vienna around then, the original German text was by the Jewishsocialist playwright Ernst Toller, who died by suicide in 1939.

Towards the end of his life, May was dogged by deafness, alcoholism and mentalillness but he never lost faith in his craft. Frederick May: Sunlight andShadow is a fitting testament to a man who wrote about being a composerthus: ‘One should follow one’s ownstar with humility and patience, wherever it may lead.’