Seán Ó Riada’s role in the promotion and development ofIrish traditional music is well known, particularly in his work with CeoltóiríChualann. What can tend to be overlooked, however, was his ambition to createorchestral music in the European tradition. These compositions predated and, itmay be argued, underpinned all of his activities in traditional music. As hesaid himself, ‘itis my composition that gives meaning to my existence’.

Nomos No.1 and hisfilm score to Mise Éire were the mostsuccessful of his orchestral works and are presented on Seán Ó Riada: Orchestral Works in wonderful new performances withthe RTÉ National Symphony and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra. Of Nomos No.1 one commentator, while notingits debt to the European tradition, wrote that ‘…it was unmistakably the workof a great Irishman and could have been written by no-one else’.  

Nomas No.4 features Irishpianist Cathal Breslin and is unashamedly modern in conception and in theclarity of the writing for strings. Although it was composed over fifty yearsago, there are echoes of Arvo Pärt’s bell-like tintinabulation in some of thepiano passages. The other two works on SeánÓ Riada: Orchestral Works The Banksof the Sulán and Seoladh nanGamhan (The Herding of the Calves) are both pastoral in character.These complement perfectly the live bonus track, Noel Kelehan’s orchestralarrangement of Ó Riada’s original piano arrangement of Mná na hÉireann (Women of Ireland) sung by Seán Ó Sé.