Musical form as a framing device: absolute music and Desiderius a Dó [The Second Desiderius] by Pádraig Ó Cíobháin

This paper undertakes a close reading of European classical music forms used as a framing device in the Irish language novel Desiderius a Dó (1995) by Pádraig Ó Cíobháin. Considered one of the seminal novels of modern Irish, Ó Cíobháin’s work contains what the scholar Irina Rajewsky describes as “intramedial references to visual arts, music, cinema, literature and architecture”. Classical music occupies a central place in the novel, and is essential for an understanding of its plot, characterization, narrative and its thematic concern with ideas of binaries and performance. The paper examines absolute music forms characteristic of the classical period in the novel, explores how Ó Cíobháin uses liturgical music and chant, and concludes that the overall effect of the writer’s approach is a reimagination of the Irish language novel within a European frame that is remarkable for the depth and scope it gives the characters and the narrative.