Making an Irish Free State City – The musical life of Theo Gmür

Professor Theo Gmür was a popular and respectable figure in late nineteenth century and early twentieth Cork.

He was a musical collaborator with many groups, such as the Warblers as written about in this column in the last two weeks. At every musical event in the city in early Irish Free State Cork, Theo seems to pop up as a regular accompanist and champion.

Historical clues to the early part of Professor Gmür’s life appear in the detailed ‘Contemporary Biographies’, edited by WT Pike, which was published by Richard J Hodges in 1911. Swiss-born in 1879, Theo was the son of Johann Gmür, of Amden Canton, St Gall, Switzerland. Theo was educated at Benedictine College, Einsiedeln. It was run by the Benedictine monks of Einsiedeln Abbey, who had a long tradition of scholarship and education dating back over 1,000 years.

There Theo studied the great composers such as Mozart. He became familiar with every instrument and as a young teenager he was entrusted with the conducting of the student’s choral union and brass band.

Theo’s career and his later work in Cork was highly influenced by his education, his father who was a conductor of an orchestra in his home town, and by his teachers in Munich. At sixteen years old in Munich, Theo was a year pupil under Franz Joseph Breitenbach studying the organ. Franz was a well-known Swiss organist and composer known for his Romantic era works like marches and variations. Theo was also a private pupil of Carl Greith, of Munich. Carl Greith worked as a highly valued music instructor and composed a symphony, among other works.

At twenty years of age, Theo refused a church organist post in Pittsburgh, USA and instead he took up an appointment at Cork’s SS Peter and Paul’s Church.

Theo arrived in Cork city, had to learn English, and rapidly gained a reputation as a respected organist. He remained the organist and director of the choir in the church up to 1929. Indeed, in time he was honoured by Pope Leo XIII with a photograph, inscribed with the pontifical seal and blessing, for his work on behalf of church music.

From the beginning, there was admiration by Corkonians for Theo’s fine musicianship and teaching abilities. In ‘Guy’s Directory of Cork’ in 1883, Theo is listed as ‘Herr Th. Gmür' as a piano agent to hire, located at 47 Grand Parade.

Theo quickly became part of a movement to champion amateur opera in the city. Aloys Fleischmann in his essay Music in Cork in his edited book ‘Music in Ireland’ in 1952 describes that from 1880 on public interest seems to have gravitated towards amateur opera. In that year ‘HMS Pinafore’ was produced in the Theatre Royal. The year 1881 coincided with the production of an Irish opera ‘Amergin', with libretto and music by a young Cork musician named Paul McSwiney, and of a comic operetta ‘For Lack of Gold’ by another Corkman named Frank Reid.

Gilbert and Sullivan’s ‘Patience’ was produced in 1882 at the Cork District Lunatic Asylum. It was so successful that it was repeated in the city’s Assembly Rooms. It led to the launching of the Cork Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society, which made its debut in Cork Opera House with ‘The Pirates of Penzance’. It was Theo Gmür’s first big job as musical director.

From then irregularly until 1910, performances of light opera, chiefly by Gilbert and Sullivan and Robert Planquette, under Theo’s musical direction, continued to be the events of the season in Cork Opera House.

Indeed, in 1893 Theo produced his own opera, ‘Edelweiss’. The narrative had a Swiss theme with considerable success being described by the Cork Examiner newspaper on the respective performance week at Cork Opera House. ‘Edelweiss’ was re-written and revived in 1895 and again revived in 1910.

In the midst of the early pioneering effort in amateur opera production, on 2 November 1886, the Cork Examiner highlights further collaborative efforts two new patriotic songs to appear at Cork concerts. With words by Timothy Daniel Sullivan and music by Theo Gmür, the songs were entitled ‘The Green Flag’ and ‘Westward’. The Cork Examiner newspaper praises Theo’s and Timothy’s collaborative compositions as refreshing and a move away from general “dreary recitatives”. Timothy (1827-1914) was a politician, journalist, and songwriter. He was famous for his penning of the song ‘God Save Ireland’ which he wrote a few days after the execution of the Manchester Martyrs in November 1867. It became the unofficial national anthem of nationalist Ireland.

In 1887, Theo married Mary, a singer, and daughter of Robert McSweeny, of Cork. They had one daughter named Eileen. They lived at College View where Theo also taught his pupils. Theo also had a studio for his students at 51, South Mall. Mary also helped demonstrate, through singing, some of the opera songs Theo spoke about at his public lectures across the city.

Theo had the distinction of being musical director of the Cork International Exhibition of 1902 and 1903. He collaborated with a small orchestra of musicians of various nationalities.

On the back of a strong CV, by 1907 Theo had gained a teaching post as a professor in the Cork School of Music taking over from Conor Swertz. Theo’s title was Professor of Counterpoint and Composition, Organ and Harmonium.

Pike’s ‘Contemporary Biographies’, published in 1911, details that Theo was highly involved in the musical life of the city. He was organist at Cork City Hall and held regular public concerts. He was also conductor of the Cork Municipal School of Music Choral Society, the Cork Choral Union, the Cork Musical Club, the Cork Operatic Society, the Cork Philharmonic Society and conductor at the Cork Young Ireland Society concerts. He was music professor at St Angela’s College.

Theo was a member of Internationale Musikgesellschaft and member of the General Council of the Incorporated Society of Musicians. He was an honorary academician at Trinity College, London.

He was also one of the members of the preliminary committee of the Feis Ceoil and was an examiner for many famous colleges such as the Royal College of Music, London and at the Irish Academy of Music, London. Of the large number of pupils who passed through Theo’s hands many became well-known singers throughout Ireland, and all spoke highly of his teaching and personality.

The Cork Examiner describes that there was great sadness when Professor Theo Gmür died on 21 January 1929. The obituary describes him as a person deeply respected in the city and a “man of remarkable energy and zeal for the advancement of culture”.