It has long been the fate of many composers to remain unacknowledged until after death. The history of 20th-century classical music is particularly dominated by individual stories of composers battling against the magnificent music legacy of the past as well as a suspicious public wary of experimentation. Consider the initially hostile reception and charges of gimmickry which greeted the serial music of the 1950s and 1960s. Contemporary Irish music probably dates from Fredrick May's String Quartet in C Minor which was composed in 1936. "I think that that is a pioneering work, probably the single most significant breakthrough." Yet until the second World War, Irish composition remained influenced by England, while an emerging rejection of outside influences also encouraged the arranging of Irish melodies, filtered through 19thcentury harmonies. This all began to change through the work of the post-Emergency generation to which Brian Boydell, the natural successor of May, belongs.

Throughout the 1940s, Boydell as well as Havelock Nelson, Aloys Fleischmann, Walter Beckett and Joan Trimble were engaged in serious, formal composition. Within a decade, other composers such as Gerard Victory, Seoirse Bodley and A. J. Potter had joined them. It was an exciting time.

"RTE had only one channel at the time, yet Irish classical music was very well served. In fact there was far more of it broadcast then than nowadays when there are three stations," remarks Boydell, author of A Dublin Musical Calendar - 1700-1760 (1989), whose compositions include a violin concerto, four string quartets, orchestral, chamber and choral works.

Commissioned by RTE, Boydell's atmospheric orchestral piece Masai Mara was premiered in 1989 and until this month's forthcoming national tour following a performance at the National Concert Hall on November 21st, had not been performed during the intervening years. Boydell smiles ruefully. Announcements of world premieres tend to make him smile and he refers to advertisements of forthcoming recitals he often happened upon while researching Dublin's 18th-century music scene.

"The arrival of performers would be described in terms such as `appearing for the positively last time in this kingdom' - I often think of performances of contemporary music in similar terms. There is always the fuss and then the piece never gets played again." The revival of Masai Mara pleases him, particularly as the RTE Symphony Orchestra will be going on tour under Kaspar de Roo, who also conducted the premiere performance.

"It's easy to blame RTE for the lack of contemporary music. But one is catering for a minority interest - that's struggle number one. While struggle number two is in an increasingly commercial world, contemporary classical music - for want of a better phrase - doesn't sell." An awareness of this situation motivated the Arts Council's establishment of the Contemporary Music Centre in 1986. This archive and resource centre contains Ireland's only major specialist collection of music by modern Irish composers and has always enjoyed Boydell's enthusiastic support.

Now 80, he smiles at the comment that his music with its echoes of Stravinsky, Berg and Bartok must have struck Irish audiences throughout the 1940s and 1950s as very modern. "I've now become something of an old fogey, but in the 1940s I was regarded as the naughty boy of frightfully modern music." While acknowledging his influences, and he also refers to the impact Sibelius had on him, he says "I admired Stravinsky, but he's not an influence".

Dismissing originality as "a late Romantic invention", he says: "the whole idea of originality has caused such a distortion of music. I never had liked that `plinketyplonk' Stockhausen stuff. " Boydell stresses he has never struggled to be up-to-date or innovative, "I write music that I like".

Irony is his medium. Boydell is a selfpossessed, direct man, as exact as the scientist his father wanted him to be. With his high domed head, ragged ears and druid's beard, he looks like a wizard and sounds like an aristocrat. Though by nature an aloof man retaining his professorial distance, his expression is lively; his eyes are youthful. Boydell obviously enjoys thinking of himself as a rebel. He has always regarded himself as an instinctive musician/ composer yet believes in the importance of a complete mastery of craft. "Many composers coming up now do not have this training. The craftsmanship seems not to matter as much as the idea, and this is seen in all the arts."

His accent is the result of attending various English prep schools including the Dragon School at Oxford, before moving on to Rugby. Cambridge University completed the process, and Boydell complains: "I've had to assert my Irishness and all because of this Oxbridge accent. I was born in Dublin and aside from periods of study, have always lived here, but. . . " and he gestures in the air.

Brian and Mary Boydell have lived in a large though unobtrusive house on a quiet road in Howth, Co Dublin, for more than 40 years. "When we first came here, it was really seen as something of a wilderness, but now it's become very trendy. People like us could never afford to move here," observes Mary Boydell, leading the way to the large garden through the house with its collection of large pots made by their eldest son, ceramic artist Cormac. Polling day is dull and damp as the conversation lingers on the presidential election and its bizarre campaign. Casual chat is of scant concern for him. Music is his subject. "I'm an impractical idealist," he says. But Boydell strikes one as dauntingly practical. He is a founder member of the Music Association of Ireland, the founder of the Dowland Consort and, though now retired, remains the longest serving member of the Arts Council.

During his 20 years as Professor of Music at Trinity College, Boydell instituted an honours school of music, which included restructuring the music degrees and also introducing an emphasis on acoustics. Far from being an introverted artist, Boydell is a campaigning pioneer for his art, particularly as regards the teaching of it. Describing music as "a religion, an inspiration and a revelation", he concedes the difficulty of putting words on his feelings about it. Considering that Boydell also trained as a painter under Mainie Jellett in the early 1940s, his language is restrained, functional rather than image-driven.

Born in Howth, the eldest child of a Dublin businessman involved in a maltings firm, Boydell appears to have had to earn his right for a life in music. Stressing his Irishness, Boydell is however aware that he is a product of the Anglo-Irish society of his time, hence his English education.

"My father was a very strict man. He took being Anglo-Irish very seriously - though I'm not sure he would have recognised the term, I think he believed the King of England had been appointed by God."

James Boydell was determined to instil the correct Protestant ethic in his son, the emphasis was not on enjoyment. "It was strict, severe; I respected and admired my father but we didn't have a close relationship. You could say he was determined to lead me along the path of righteousness."

Communication was far easier with his mother. Eileen Collins was one of Trinity's first women graduates, taking a degree in natural sciences. "Mother was quite nationalistically inclined but kept quiet about it in respect of my father." It was a largely privileged Edwardian boyhood, the family lived in a succession of rented houses - "in those days businessmen tended to rent for a couple of years and then move, rather than buy" - before settling in Shankill, Co Dublin.

In 1955 Boydell and his wife returned to Howth, where they raised their three sons: Cormac, Barra and Marnac who died in a motor bike accident in 1981.

From Monkstown Park, Co Dublin, "a frightful institution with dreadful bullying", the young Brian Boydell went to the Dragon School at Oxford - "a splendid place and the only school I haven't a bad word for, it encouraged you to be an individual, if also rather stiff-upper-lip". And then to Rugby, of which he announces: "I hated it and the whole British system it advocated. There was a patronising attitude towards the Irish."

Particularly offensive to him was a comment "Must not make his nationality an excuse for his behaviour", written by a master in a report sent home. "Nowadays you could sue for racism," he says. Boydell claims to have become "violently Republican" at Rugby. However, it was vital in the shaping of Boydell the musician. "It has to be said the education there was very good, in science and music."

At Rugby, he came under the influence of Kenneth Stubbs, an inspirational music master, possibly Boydell's most important mentor and something of a surrogate father. "But you know of my own father, he later became very supportive of my music. I think it's important to mention that."

Before arriving at Clare College Cambridge, he spent some months after leaving Rugby studying music at Heidelberg and his earliest compositions were songs. While there he also studied the organ. At Cambridge, Boydell, a baritone, was a choral exhibitioner and president of the Clare College Music Society. Following graduation with a first in the Natural Science Tripos, Boydell entered the Royal College of Music in London to concentrate on his music studies and, already an able pianist, was soon playing a second instrument, the oboe. At the college he studied composition under Patrick Hadley and, when he was not available, Herbert Howells.

War broke out and Boydell returned to Dublin, working briefly as a research scientist measuring moisture levels in wheat and estimating the tint of various kinds of malt used in the brewing process. He then taught painting. From 1944 until 1952 he was Professor of Singing at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. During that time he completed a BMus in 1948; he later obtained his doctorate in 1959. He was also involved with the Dublin Orchestral Players, succeeding Havelock Nelson as conductor.

Of his own oboe playing he says, "I wouldn't describe myself as a world-class player, but I did make a nice sound and I think I played musically." The conductor Jean Martinon, then conducting what was known at the time as the Radio Eireann Symphony Orchestra, provided important early encouragement to Boydell both as conductor and composer.

"Martinon was the first really good conductor, he made the orchestra play as it had never played before. He also conducted the first performance of one of my orchestral works." Meanwhile Boydell the lecturer was becoming known to a wider audience through various programmes broadcast on radio.

Geology and archaeology have always interested him, as when speaking of himself as an Irish composer whose work has subconsciously reflected this, he agrees: "I have never wanted to use a folk song, but I could not help absorbing folk music."

Such has been the extent of Boydell's successes that it is easy to accuse him of having a soft run through life. The death of his youngest son at 25 was a massive private tragedy for the family. Boydell, for all his natural arrogance, is a naturally philosophical individual, having learnt his stoicism at an early age. Diagnosed with ringworm at the age of six, he was treated with radiation. The subsequent radiation burns resulted in skin ulcers which caused extensive scarring on his head and ears. "It was a bother, it meant my hair never grew properly, I never really had much. I got used to being called `Baldy Boydell' but that's life." What music most interests him now. "You mean of the new music? I'm afraid I haven't kept myself very up-to-date." As for the current generation of performers he says: "I'm not interested in who's playing, I'm interested in the music."

Classical music has become a major industry, recording companies have chosen to market some musicians as if they were pop stars. "It's all very competitive," he sighs, "I don't like competition in music. I think it's an awful pity - even though I've earned a lot of money from judging competitions." Monteverdi remains a favourite of his, while Bach is "absolutely fundamental. I'm less interested in opera."

Claiming to remain largely untouched by 19th-century Italian opera, he admits to enjoying Wagner, "I went Wagner-mad when I was studying in Heidelberg." His range of musical interest is wide; he has worked extensively on the madrigal which flourished for a relatively brief period from about 1590 to 1620. He considers the string quartet as the most demanding form. "A string quartet has got to be good, you can't rely on colourist tricks."

Delighted with the Masi Mara tour, he adds: "The Megalithic Ritual Dances also stand out as something of which I can be reasonably proud." Does he spend much time sitting in his music room, listening to music? "I tend to sit and think about what I know, which is rather a great deal. My memory holds a huge store of lovely music and I can think back on it. I don't seek out as many new impressions as I might. I suppose I'm getting rather lazy."