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The Story of the Harp in Wales Ellis, Osian. University of Wales 0708311040 9780708311042 9780585309088 English Celtic harp--History, Folk music--Wales--History and criticism. 1991 ML1005.E44 1991eb 787.95 Celtic harp--History, Folk music--Wales--History and criticism.
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The Story of the Harp in Wales Osian Ellis
1
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ã Osian Ellis, 1991 The realizations and arrangements of the music and songs in this publication are the copyright of the author and should be acknowledged in any performance ã 1991 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without clearance from the University of Wales Press, 6 Gwennyth Street, Cardiff, CF2 4YD. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Ellis, Osian The story of the harp in Wales. 1. Harps. History I. Title 787.95 ISBN 0-7083-1104-0 All music included in this book (other than facsimile manuscripts) has been prepared by the author. The cover illustration Penillion Singing near Conway by J.C. Ibbetson, 1792 is reproduced by kind permission of the National Museum of Wales. Cover design by Ruth Dineen. Typeset and printed at the Alden Press, Oxford and London
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Preface This small volume is not intended as a learned document, but rather, it is an attempt to present within a small compass a statement of the major features of what is considered to be the traditional musical instrument of the Welsh people. During the last decade a flowing stream of fresh scholarship has emerged from several sources in Wales, England and America. In a short volume such as this I have not always been able to take full account of this new work, and further research again will be needed for an extensive scholarly treatment of the subject. The shape of this book has been designed to accommodate music and, for those who might wish to play the music on any instrument (preferably a harp!), it should be convenient for placing on a music-stand. Perhaps I should mention that where I have translated Welsh verse into English I have considered it useful to do so literally and unadorned; I aim not to charm but to instruct.
OSIAN ELLIS ST DAVID'S DAY 1 MARCH 1991
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Acknowledgements The illustrations in this book are included by kind permission of the following: Welsh Folk Museum, St Fagans, Cardiff: the Foelas crwth (p.4), the Mostyn silver harp (p.13), triple harp (p.50), Nansi Richards (p.77). National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth: Statute of Gruffudd ap Cynan (p.9), Musica neu Beroriaeth (pp.15,17 and 30), harp drawing by Gwilym Puw (p.29), Blind John Parry (p.53), extract from the Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards (p.56), Ceiriog (p.60), John Roberts (p.69), the Roberts family (p.70). National Library of Ireland, Dublin: John Derricke's Image of Ireland (p.45). Parry Library, Royal College of Music: Y Galon Drom, Antient British Music Part II, Evan Williams MS 1745 (p.63). The National Trust and Robert Chapman Photography: Cotehele Tester or bedhead, Cotehele House, Cornwall (p.14). I should like to thank Mr Gareth Haulfryn Williams of the Caernarfonshire Historical Society, for kindly making a search of the Cefn Amlwch papers in pursuit of the young John Parry, but alas, without uncovering any new evidence. Many of the documents are no longer extant. Finally, I am most grateful to the staff of the University of Wales Press for their care and attention, and especially to Ms Liz Powell who has kindly dealt with the design and preparation of the book for the press.
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The Story of the Harp in Wales The earliest harps
It is no easy task to trace the history of the harp in Wales. The old, fragile instruments have disappeared over the centuries, and there survive only Welsh harps from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; most of these cannot be strung and played because they are structurally weak, and they would collapse and break if any tension were put on the strings. However, let us first try to trace the worldwide development of the harp. It is found in many civilizations, and it is generally believed to have come from the simple bow of the hunter (Fig.1). The percussive twang of the taut bowstring would have intrigued early man, and over millenia he would have exploited, developed and elevated the bow to the status of a musical instrument just by adding more strings and a resonating chamber to amplify the
sound, sometimes by placing the bow on the mouth, or by adding a gourd or wooden sound-box (Fig.3). These primitive instruments are still made and played in parts of Africa and Asia, like the beautifully decorated Burmese harp (Fig.4), and the wooden harp with head-carving from Gabon in West Africa (Fig.5). The sound-box would not always be of wood, but it might be covered in skin or parchment (Figs. 4 & 6). Because of the present-day custom of cataloguing musical instruments scientifically, we must now call these: bowshaped harps (Figs. 2, 4 & 6), and angle-harps (Figs. 3 & 5), and from these there emerged the frame-harp with a front pillar, which gave greater strength, and, consequently, allowed more tension and a higher pitch and tuning. The frame-harp in Wales will be the main subject of our study. Another ancient instrument was the Iyre (Fig.8) found in pre-Christian Sumeria, Egypt, Greece and Rome, usually U-shaped, and a close relative of the Hebrew kinor (Fig. 7) played by David as he calmed the demented Saul with his music, and to which he may have sung or declaimed his Psalms. The primitive crwth or crowd (Fig. 9) may have been a mutation of the lyre, and, according to the poet-priest, Venantius Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers in France during the sixth century, it was played in ancient Britain: Romanusque lyra, plaudat tibi barbarus harpa, Graecus Achilliaca, crotta Britanna canat. Let the Romans praise with the lyre, the barbarian with harp, the Greeks with Achillian poems, and the Britons with the crwthcrotta.
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The Britons, or the early Welsh, played, according to Venantius, not the harp, but the crwth, and they played with their fingers and nails, long before the bow (like a violin or cello bow) was introduced from Arab countries during the tenth and eleventh centuries. It was the barbarian who played the harp, and to a Roman or later Italian, like Venantius, the barbarian indicated one of the Teutonic tribes of Germany, the Low Countries, and the Angle and Saxon tribes then busily invading British shores from across the North Sea. According to historians and authorities on old Anglo-Saxon literature, the heroic poetry of the Teutonic peoples was always sung or recited to the harp. Tacitus, a Latin author, relates that their songs were their only historical records. Arminius, one of the Germans who conquered a Roman army, was afterwards celebrated in song. Long after the Anglo-Saxons had settled in Britain these Germanic people were still singing popular lays about their ancestors. There is no doubt that many of their songs were of great antiquity and of obscure origin, and the Old English heroic poems reflect acquaintance with earlier versions before separation from other Germanic tribes.
Eulogies of heroes, and funeral and wedding songs would be among the kinds of poetry sung. Epic poetry probably came to be declaimed rather than sung; the Old English expression is singan ond secganto sing and to say. This is a development parallel to that of the Greek Homeric epics: the stresses would continue to be marked by the strum of the harp, and the laws of music would still govern the composition, except for the loss of melody. The vitality of the English alliterative tradition is proved by its re-emergence in the fourteenth century, after being driven underground for three centuries by Norman and French influences, and it has left sufficient impression on English popular ballads to suggest that it had a long history on the lips of the people (Bruce Pattison, Music and Poetry of the English Renaissance). There are many references to the harp in old Anglo-Saxon literature; in Heorot, when Beowulf was entertained by King Hrothgar, a minstrel sang to the harp. Again, the Venerable Bede describes how Caedmon, after feasting in fine company, would sidle away rather than be embarrassed, for he could not sing or play the harp as every respectable Saxon was expected to do in those days. After the feast, the harp would be passed from hand to hand, and each person was expected to contribute in his turn to this Teutonic singsong. But were these frame-harps, or angle-harps or rotesthe latter very similar to the primitive crwthas the word suggests: crwth, crotta, rota, rote, etc.
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The frame-harp in Britain It is impossible to give a precise date for the appearance of the frame-harp in Britain. Some authorities would claim that it arrived with the Teutonic peoples, or that it was imported from the Near East through trading contacts, or perhaps through communication between the early Celtic Church and Christian communities in Egypt and Syria, while the Irish believe that it was their invention. Early Welsh literature is notably reticent in references to the harp and crwth, which is surprising in view of their later popularity. One might assume, therefore, that these instruments were not indigenous to Wales and may have arrived only during the ninth and tenth centuries. Yet we have the evidence of the Welsh Laws codified by Hywel Dda about AD 950; they illustrate the high regard for the poets and musiciansthe pencerdd (the chief bard), the bardd teulu (the house or court poet), and the minstrels. The function and status of the courtiers were catalogued, and the bardd teulu was designated his place next to the court judge. He was to receive his harp from his king or ruler; he was to sing his first song to God, and his second to the king. Other songs could be sung to the queenprivately if she so desired, so as not to disturb the rest of the court. Each pencerdd was to be provided with an instrument by the kinga harp for one, a crwth for another, and pipes for a third. Because the Laws were not actually written down in manuscript until the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, more than 300 years after their conception by Hywel Dda and his advisers, certain doubts do exist that many items might have been changed to conform with later customs, implements and instruments. The famous lines: Wyf bardd ac wyf delynor Wyf pibydd ac wyf crythor (I am a bard and I am a harper, I am a piper and I am a crowther) are not by the early poet, Taliesin, who flourished during the sixth century and composed much poetry in the old Welsh North, between Carlisle and Strathclyde, but are from the much later poems, the Taliesin Romances, found in manuscripts written during the thirteenth century by Welsh monks intent on noting for posterity stories and poetry that had until then been sustained by oral tradition. I should emphasize that any doubt that exists is about the nature of the early harp in Wales: was it a frame-harp or a crwth? We know that musical instruments were always popular among the Welsh and their Celtic forbears. Diodorus Siculus, quoting the evidence of the earlier Posidonius of Apamea, wrote as early as the first century BC and described the bards among the Celts of Gaul: They have poets whom they call bards, who sing songs of eulogy and of satire, accompanying themselves on instruments
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very like the lyre friend and foe submit to the song of the bard. Professor J.J.Tierney writing on The Celtic Ethnography of Posidonius adds: The Bards, the companions of the chieftains, accompany them in war as well as in peace. They pronounce their praises before the whole assembly and before each of the chieftains in turn as they listen they are called Bards, poets who deliver their eulogies in song. In AD 60 the Roman leader, Suetonius, believed that the he had to destroy the Welsh druids of Mona (Anglesey) because of their spiritual influence; initially, his soldiers were petrified with fear on the banks of the Menai Straits at the sight of these, apparently, sacred priests and their followers; eventually, their officers forced them across the Straits and, according to Tacitus, all the druids were annihilated. At the turn of the sixth century the poet Aneirin tells that many a minstrel entertained at the court of Mynyddog Mwynfawr at Dineidyn (modern Edinburgh) before the battle of Catraeth. Maelgwn Gwynedd, King of Gwynedd earlier in the sixth century, patronized bards and musicians to the disgust of the narrow-minded priest and author, Gildas. There is a delightful story that King Maelgwn mischievously called upon his poets and musicians to wade across the River Conwy; the poets were none the worse, but the musicians were dismayed with their ruined, water-sodden harps and crwths; the tale is recalled by the poet lorwerth Beli circa 1320:
The Foelas crwth Pan ddaethant i dir terfyn môr ar drai Dimai nis talai'r telynorion Cystal y prydai'r Prydyddion â chynt Er a nofiesynt helynt haelion. (When they reached dry land, not a ha'penny would he pay the harpers; the poets composed as well as ever in spite of their pains.) Here, again, we have a description seven centuries after the events took place. We must not, therefore, automatically assume that the musicians played harps. Because of the lack of specific verbal and pictorial evidence on the history of the harp in Wales the musicologist and scientific researcher will, no doubt, insist that the harp came from England; three famous authorities, Curt Sachs, Otto Andersson and F.W. Galpin claim this. In his remarkable volume, The Bowed Harp Andersson observes on the theory that the frame-harp was invented by the
Celts and first became known in the British Isles: Mr. Galpin demonstrated the untenability of this view, after which one might have expected the subject to be dropped. Yet, in view of the circumstantial evidence of the early poets, of the Laws of Hywel Dda, and of the stories in the Mabinogion, we, in Wales, find it difficult to accept that the harp was not known in our land from time immemorial. In Menestrellorum Multitude, subtitled Minstrels at a Royal Feast, Dr Constance Bullock-Davies has shown conclusively that the harp was popular in England until the death of Edward I, for she gives a vivid account of the magnificent feast held in London in 1306 in honour of the knighting
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of the Prince of Wales (soon to be Edward II) when scores of minstrels from the royal and baronial households were in attendance. From the bleak parchments of the payrolls of the Public Record Office she skilfully reconstructs the activities, functions, status and remuneration of harpists, crowthers, trumpeters, organists and others. Here is her list of minstrels mentioned in the payrolls on Whitsunday 1306: Trumpeters
19Guitarists
1
Taborersa
6Organists
2
Nakerersb
1Campanistsh
1
Estivoursc
2Acrobats
1
Boy Minstrels
5Fencers
2
Harpers
26Reges Haraldorumi
6
Vielle-playersd
13Heralds
4
Crowthers
9Sergeants-at Arms
1
Geige-playerse
3Grooms
3
Psaltery-playersf
2Waferersi
5
Lutenists
1Watchmenk
4
Citole-playersg
1Messengers
1
a Tabor: fairly small, two-skin drum played with wooden sticks. Ideal for beating time for dancing or for accompanying jugglers and acrobats. b Nakerer: played small kettle-drums strung on the back of a groom. c Estive: a form of small bagpipe. d Vielle: medieval precursor of the violplayed with a bow. e Geige-players: Two German string-players had been employed by Edward I for seven years to play a bowed instrument halfway between a vielle and a violin. f Psaltery: an early stringed instrument like the dulcimer (or a harp played flat on the knees), generally of triangular shape with sound-box under the strings. Played with finger-nails or plectrum. g Citole: or Citterna wire string instrument, not unlike the lute, but with a flat back. In Shakespeare's time they might be found in barbers' shops for the use of waiting customers. h Campanists: players of hand-bells or bells strung on a frame. i Reges Haraldorum: the King's personal heralds and trumpeters. j Waferers: although they could practise as minstrels their primary duty was to make and serve wafers to the king himself. The wafers were made of flour, sugar and eggs and cooked in baking-irons. k Watchmen: they had to make regular inspections of the palace in search of wrong-doers or of fires. They also called or piped the hours when necessary.
The harpers outnumber all other groups of instrumentalists. Their eminence was still unassailed. Dr Bullock-Davies observes:
No doubt this was due to conservatism, because the harp was the national instrument of the English, but its own nature, of course, contributed most to its long-lasting popularity. Much of its appeal lay
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in its simplicity and plangency, for the early harp was totally unlike its modern, concert descendant. It was easily portable, small, usually about two feet in height and possessing anything from six to a dozen strings.Up to the beginning of the fourteenth century it held pride of place in the royal household, but after Edward I died subsequent Wardrobe books provide a silent testimony to the beginning of its decline. After 1307 there are no entries which refer to a group of King's Harpers as there regularly used to be. Edward II followed the newer fashion. During his reign one can trace the change which was gradually coming over the musical world (pp.27/8). The newer music was played by bowed instruments like the vielle, the crowd (crwth), and the geige or primitive fiddle. Under Edward I all minstrels remained on duty for varying periods of time; the string-players, including the harpers, would play at mealtimes, and they would entertain the king, queen, princes, princesses, nobles and guestssometimes in their private rooms, and, at night, the harper's gentle strains might soothe a bad sleeper or a sick personage. They played a major part in all Court functions and festivities, and, with the organist, they might provide music for church services. They also went to war with the king both home and abroad. Whether minstrels took part in the fighting is doubtful. Dr Bullock-Davies tells us that in 1300 Nicholas Ie Blond, then King's Harper, travelled with Edward I from London to Caerlaverock; the itinerary can be traced in wages paid to him on the journey from 14 April to 30 August; through St Albans, Dunstable, Stamford, York, Carlisle, Caerlaverock, and later, after the siege, on to Kirkcudbright and Dumfries. Altogether he received £10.2s.7d., which in our money today would be equivalent to about £3,000. As a mark of genuine appreciation of the minstrels' skill they might also be given gratuities or largesse, and when they grew old or were no longer able to work, they were sent to some wealthy abbey or prosperous minor monastery in which to end their days. Irish and Welsh methods of playing. The development of harps in Ireland was quite separate from that in Wales. The Irish used a heavy wooden harp with brass strings, whilst the Welsh favoured a more delicate, lighter instrument with strings of horsehair and, later on, gut (made from the intestines of sheep). Nowadays harpists generally play with just the tips of their fingers, but, in former times, both the Irish and Welsh harpers used nails as well as fingertips on the strings resulting in a bright, clear, almost percussive sound. The Welsh custom was to play with four fingersthe little finger was too short to reach the strings, and the harpist, Robert ap Huw, around 1613, shows in his music manuscript (to which I shall return) that he used only thumb and three fingers. The fourteenth-century poet, lolo Goch, satirizes the newfangled harp covered in leather and with gut strings (he hated its curved shape and
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its raucous tone), and he praises the old wooden harp with strings of horse-hair; he also mentions the use of eight fingers (see D.R.Johnston, Gwaith lolo GochThe Poetry of lolo Goch). It is likely that Irish harpers fingered similarly, for in her book, The Irish Harp (page 49), Joan Rimmer mentions an ode to Nicholas Dall Pierse, a blind Kerry harper (15611653) containing a reference to the vigour of eight fingers. The Welsh and Irish harpers both held the harp on the left shoulder, and played the higher treble strings with the left hand and the lower strings with the rightcontrary to the rest of Europe. I would suggest that the custom would follow automatically from playing the earlier crwth, when the right hand plucked the strings to the player's right, and the left hand, with greater dexterity (as on a lute or guitar), altered the pitch of the strings on the finger-board; so the whole relation of the crwth would be to the left of the player, hence, the same physical attitude towards the harp. Bards and harpers of the Middle Ages It might be appropriate at this point to mention that in the Welsh language the word canu can mean singing or composing poetry. Cerdd can mean a poem, song, art of poetry, music, or musical instrument. Further, canu cerdd has the meaning of composing a poem or singing a song. The ancient meaning of cerdd was craft (Geiriadur Prifysgol CymruDictionary of the University of Wales). Then again, we do not play instruments, we sing them: canu telyn (harp), canu piano, canu ffidil, canu organ, etc. and the poets will say canu cywydd (one of the major metrical forms of Welsh poetry since the fourteenth century), canu awdl (ode)even canu soned when they have composed these poems. How, then, do we interpret the lines of Dafydd ap Gwilym, the most distinguished and famous of the Welsh poets of the fourteenth century who, obviously, played the harp? In one poem he claims that he is so unhappy that he cannot raise his arms to play: Ni chân fy neufraich ennyd (Nor sing/play my two arms awhile..) And elsewhere: Poed anolo fo ei fin A'i gywydd a'i ddeg ewin. (However worthless his lips [speech/song] with his cywydd and his ten fingernails.) and again: Ni chân bardd yma i hardd hin Gywydd gyda'i ddeg ewin.
(No bard here may sing of fine weather a cywydd with his ten finger nails.)
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Did Dafydd really use ten fingers, or is he speaking metaphorically? Did he sing his poetry to the harp, or did he declaim to harp accompaniment? The bards composed in their heads and only later would their poems be noted in manuscripts. Often the bard would have with him a harper and a datgeiniad, one who would sing or declaim his odes. When the poet died the datgeiniaid, would continue to perform and pass on the poetry to other datgeiniaid, and when the poems were noted down by scribes there would be various alternative readings according to the skill and memory of the datgeiniaid. It must be remembered that all these poems were performed before an audience; the patrons for whom they were written displayed an enthusiasm for Welsh verse, and the bard was held in great esteem, for he was, virtually, the historian and genealogist of his society. Gwyn Thomas, poet and scholar of today, maintains that many of the poems (cywyddau) are unintelligible without the rapport of the bard (or his datgeiniad) with his audience, especially bearing in mind the use of interruptive phrases, sangiadau, which were a decorative feature of the cywydd. They can be awkward to read and assimilate, yet, when sung, the music can accomodate them readily. The late Saunders Lewis, distinguished poet and scholar extraordinaire, drew attention to the similarities between the sangiad style and the Tropus (or Trope)interruptive cadences in medieval Latin liturgical music. At the death of a patron an elegy would be called for during which the bard would enunciate in verse the forbears of the deceased. In a Eulogy to the Bishop of St Asaph and his court in 1397, lolo Goch (1320-98) would mention the members and officers of the court, and they, as his audience, would relish his observations and his amusing asides. This cywydd is full of fun and energy; it is a virtuoso display from a mature and experienced, old bard. His poetry was not meant to be read in private but to be listened to and savoured. He appears to have been on intimate terms with the Bishop for he occasionally teases him and pulls his leg. Obviously, Bishop leuan Trefor (John Trevor) held him in great affection. All the company would react with knowing amusement throughout, and, especially, at his final couplet, impudent and waggish, when he implies that he will be rewarded by the Bishop with gold! How sad that there is no description of how these bards performed. There is a much later record by George Owen Harry, Vicar of Cemais, Pembrokeshire, in his Well-sprynge of True Nobility, about 1605:
the bard must have his epitaph ready within a month of the burial: against which day the chiefest of the family and kindred of the deceased would be present, and the chiefest gentlemen of the countrey would be assembled together to heare and judge of the same, in whose hearing the same epitaph must be openly, and with a loud and clear voice, recited.
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The Statute of Gruffudd ap Cynan, drawn up at the 1523 Eisteddfod at Caerwys. The statute laid down rules and regulations for the function and craft of poets and musicians. But by this time the art of the bard had deteriorated: much differinge from those of ancient time by reason of the ignorance and unskilfulnesse of the authors thereof. There is no mention of harpers or datgeiniaidmerely a recitation! A musical term that has changed its meaning over the years is cerdd dantmusic for stringsharp or crwth; during the nineteenth century it became synonymous with canu penillionthe art of setting poetry to the traditional melodies played on the harp. The term cerdd dafod (literally, the craft, or music of the tongue) has remained constant throughout its historypoetry in the strict alliterative metres.
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There has always been a strong tradition that there was intercourse between the Irish and Welsh bards and musicians around the year 1100, brought about by Gruffudd ap Cynan, King of Gwynedd, whose mother was Irish. In a History of Cambria published by David Powell in 1584 we read: There are three sorts of minstrels in Wales: 1 The first sort named Beirdd. 2 The second sort of them are plaiers upon instruments, chiefly the harp and crowth, whose musike for the most part came to Wales with the said Gruffudd ap Cynan, who being on the one side an Irishman by his mother and grandmother, and also born in Ireland, brought over with him out of that countrie divers cunning musicians into Wales, who devised in a manner all the instrumental musike that is now here used, as appeareth as well by the books written of the same, as also by the names of the tunes and measures used among them to this daie. 3 The third sort are Atkaneiaidthe singers of songs. The Celtic scholar, Professor J. Caerwyn Williams, notes that there was an Irish presence in Gwynedd and, especially, Anglesey, even before Gruffudd ap Cynan's time; the Irish, the Danes and Scandinavians of Ireland helped him in both invasions to regain his kingdom (see Beirdd y Tywysogion, Llên Cymru XI 1/2 1970 and, in English, The Poets of the Welsh Princes). Professor Williams adds that it is reasonable to assume that Gruffudd ap Cynan considered himself not just as a king who had led his people successfully but also as one who promoted religion, learning and culture, emulating, perhaps, the example of the celebrated King Brian Boru of Ireland (c.AD 9401014). He shows that this was a fruitful time in Welsh literature for it coincided with the golden age of medieval Welsh prose, the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, Culhwch and Olwen, Lludd and Llefelys, Breuddwyd Macsen, Breuddwyd Rhonabwy, and of works which bore French influence, the Three Romances (Peredur, Owain and Geraint), and also the chronicles of the Welsh abbeys. Writing earlier in the twentieth century Professor T. Gwynn Jones observed that he could not deny the validity of the tradition that Gruffudd ap Cynan had brought poets and musicians with him from Ireland; although this is not substantiated in the Hanes Gruffudd ap Cynan (History of Gruffudd ap Cynan) written shortly after his reign; the tradition was so strong that the rules and regulations dealing with the function and craft of the poets and musicians drawn up for the 1523 Eisteddfod at Caerwys were named The Statute of Gruffudd ap Cynan so as to give historic, royal significance to the occasion. But Professor Caerwyn Williams does not concur: although Gruffudd ap Cynan could have influenced the Welsh bardic order during his reign, there is no evidence that he did, and very little likelihood that he could have imposed Irish practices on the Welsh bards, even had he tried. The Hanes tells that his chief harper, a pencerdd named Gellan, died in battle, in the retreat from Aberlleiniog in
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1094. Yet it is apparent that there were striking similarities in the art and the custom of the Welsh and Irish bards of this period especially in the names of the musical measures, which we shall discuss later on, which appear closer to Irish than to Welsh. The eisteddfod tradition For those who are only vaguely familiar with Wales I should explain that Eisteddfod [Eias in eye; steddas in tether; fodas in vod or odd], a word which originally meant a session or assembly of poets and musicians, is derived from the Welsh verb eistedd, to sit. It has evolved to denote a competitive festival devoted to the arts. The earliest that can be traced, according to the Chronicle of the Princes (Brut y Tywysogion), was held at Christmas at Cardigan in 1176 under the patronage of Lord Rhys ap Gruffudd: Lord Rhys held a special feast in the Castle of Aberteifi; he instituted two contests between the bards and the poets, and the other between the harpers, crowthers and pipers. The victors in both competitions were to receive chairs and gifts. The harpist from the court of Lord Rhys won the instrumental contest, and poets from Gwynedd (north Wales) won the bardic prizes. There are several references to an eisteddfod held at Carmarthen about 1450 or '51 under the patronage of Gruffudd ap Nicolas; the winning bard was Dafydd ab Edmwnd who had classified the rules of versification and had them confirmed at this eisteddfod. The silver harp was won by Cynwrig, a harper from Treffynnon (Holywell) and the silver tongue for the best datgeiniad by Rhys Bwting (or Bwtling, according to the poet, Guto'r Glyn c.1415-93), from nearby Prestatyn. The next important eisteddfodau were at Caerwys in 1523 and 1567. Thereafter the tradition degenerated until it was rekindled at the end of the eighteenth century by the London-based Gwyneddigion Society, when literary men gathered in taverns for disputation and entertainment in verse and harp music. During the early nineteenth century the eisteddfod was revived by a group of offeiriaid llengar (literary clerics) and the Cymreigyddion Society, and, in the 1860s, culminated with the formation of the National Eisteddfod Society. Large and small eisteddfodau have flourished ever since, stimulating cultural and artistic life in Wales.t The seventeenth-century manuscript of Robert ap Huw David Powell mentions books of music; these would have been manuscripts, but alas, only one book has survived of the old Welsh harp music, that of Robert ap Huw, of Bodwigan, Llanddeusant, Anglesey, (grandson of the poet, Siôn Brwynog) which he probably wrote in 1613. Some of it
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was copied from the notebook of an earlier harper, William Penllyn, who graduated as a pencerdd, master musician, at the famous Caerwys Eisteddfod in 1567. It appears that Robert ap Huw was at some time a court harpist to James I. The poet Huw Machno describes him, certainly before 1623: Gwr od [=odiaethol] yn dwyn gair ydwyd A gwas y breninteg wyd. Gwr addwyn, doeth, gwreiddwych, Ag i ras Siams, gwr sy wych, A'i gerddor mewn rhagorddysg A ddeil gerdd ddofn, ddi-lwgr ddysg. (An excellent man thou art, a servant of the Kingthou art fair; a gentle person, wise, of handsome pedigree, and to his Grace James, a fine man; preeminent as his musician, upholding great music, incorruptible art.) There is no official mention of him in King James's Accounts, but minstrels were often employed at court in other capacities or as musicians of other courtiers. Robert ap Huw died in 1665, at the ripe old age of eighty-five, and in his will there was a bequest to his godson of his harp. The old man was extremely concerned that the harp should be cared for: Item: he left & bequeathed to his Godsonne Robt Edwards during his life his best Harpe, uppon this Condicion that the said Robert Edwards shall not take from of the said harpe The Kings Armes, which is in Silver fixed thereupon but in case he the said Robert Edward will take it away, or will suffer any body els soe to doe, then his will & meaning was, that the said Harpe should be taken from the sd. Robt. Edward, & should be to the use of the said Testator's right heire.
Robert ap Huw's manuscript has caused great interest among musicians ever since it was brought to light by the antiquarian Lewis Morris during the eighteenth century. He, also, was born and brought up in Anglesey, only thirty years after the death of ap Huw, yet the music was quite incomprehensible to the cultured, oracular, Lewis Morris. It was written in a strange tablature, and the music was the product of a different age. It may have been obsolete even when ap Huw copied it in 1613. The curious tablature utilized the first seven letters of the alphabet: a b c d e f g. The lowest note used is the C of the bass clef (second space), and highest the E above the treble stave. This makes a scale of twenty-four strings, although, according to contemporary poems, harps had about thirty strings. No harps survive from this age, but there is a small model, about nine inches high, in silver in the possession of the Mostyn family. It is, of course, a silversmith's representation and not a replica. The present Lord Mostyn considers that it was made before the first Eisteddfod held at Caerwys in
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1523, and it was awarded in competition to the best harper of the time. (The Mostyn family were among the most prominent of the Eisteddfod patrons.) Though the silversmith provided only eight strings, rather than the usual thirty, it gives a clear representation of the shape of the harp during the early sixteenth century. There is a similar harp of the same period, pictured with a crwth, on a highly decorated bedhead in Cotehele House in Cornwall, brought there by the widow of Sir Griffith ap Rhys when she married Sir Piers Edgcumbe in 1532. An inscription on it proclaims the excellent workmanship of its maker, Harry ap Griffith. Unfortunately, some of the carving below the harper's hand is damaged, and the hand and bow of the crowther have fallen off. The crwth has five strings, and the fine craftsman has not managed to carve the required number of strings on the harpthe expected twenty-four to thirty.
The Mostyn silver harp model awarded to the best harper at the first Eisteddfod held at Caerwys, 1523. Many scholars have attempted to transcribe Robert ap Huw's notation an octave lowerat the Guidonian pitch, but I believe that the bass chords, sometimes of four notes, would be too low to have any clarity, and the occasional overlapping of the two hands would be impracticable. Played at the lower pitch the music sounds dense and dull. It is also unlikely that the Welsh harpists would be concerned with the convention of using Guido's pitch. There were five different keys or tunings in use: Cras gywair, Bragod gywair, Lleddf gywair, Gogywair and Isgywair. Nobody has yet defined satisfactorily what these scales were, and, consequently, this has caused great speculation as to how the music should sound. Nor can we be sure about the rhythms of the pieces, so that any transcriber is bound to take some liberties in his interpretation. The Welsh poets had their strict rules and regulations, and they wrote complicated books, gramadegau'r penceirddiad, poetry grammars, which all aspiring poets had to master before passing on to higher grades. The musicians emulated with their musical grammars and methods for the instruction of would-be harpers. One might expect, therefore, that these manuscripts would reveal how the music should be interpreted; alas, this is not so. The chief musicians, the penceirddiaid, were astute and crafty, for they would write down only some of the regulations so that it would be necessary for the pupil to be instructed personally by the pencerdd. This custom was prevalent elsewhere; while discussing A Manual of Lute-Playing published in France in 1570, the famous author, Marin Mersenne (15881648), observes that they have thought
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Robert ap Huw's notation with its modern equivalent.
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A section of the intricately carved Cotehele Tester or bedhead, made by craftsman Harry ap Griffith and taken to Cotehele House, near Callington in Cornwall in 1532. perhaps of reaping more glory by keeping the art hidden than by divulging it thus the pieces cannot be played unless they have first played and taught the music. Similarly with the Welsh music: none of the harpists of the eighteenth century could interpret ap Huw's manuscript. By then the earlier Welsh music had been rejected and replaced by new popular music emanating from England, principally from the theatres and from the songs of the ballad-mongers who sold their broadsheets in all the markets and fairs. In 1717 a fifteen-year-old boy, Richard Morris (brother of Lewis Morris), in remote Anglesey, had written a manuscript of poems (see Llawysgrif Richard Morris o Gerddi ed. Sir Thomas ParryWilliams). On one page Morris wrote the names of tunes that he could play on the viol: Jenny Jenny, Old Woman, Conseat Captain Morgans, Soldier's Life, Pudding Pie, Speening Wheel, Queen's Dream etc., eighteen with Welsh titles and thirty-seven with English titles. On other pages he names the songs that he knew: sixty Welsh and 282 English tunes. Five out of every six were English
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tunes known to this fifteen-year-old boyand not one of them was to be found in Robert ap Huw's book. The songs of the English theatres were so powerful in their influence that their styles were copied by the Welsh
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Title-page of Robert ap Huw's manuscript (British Museum Additional MS 14905)
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harpers and singers. A comparable development can be traced in Welsh poetry of this period when new free-verse forms came to be used in Wales, and during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries most of the poets wrote in the free ballad-metre lyrics which were to be sung to popular English tunes like Crimson Velvet, Greensleeves, Toll Bell. This movement was stimulated by cultured itinerant drovers who translated and brought back to Wales the English songs, and composed original songs and ballads which they disseminated either as broadsheets or through publication. Lewis Morris writes in 1762: I do not remember to have seen anything in the shape of a song until the merry reign of Charles II, about which time song-writing began to sprout in imitation of the English and French; and all good substantial Cywydds and Awdlau [Odes] about that time hid their heads. However, his opinions must not be accepted at face value; there was still much writing in the strict metres which Morris might not have been aware of, but, certainly, the professional bards and musicians had ceased to exist with the disappearance of their natural patrons, the Welsh gentry. A closer look at ap Huw's music Let us now examine the ap Huw manuscript in more detail. After Lewis Morris came upon it around 1738 he had it bound for one shilling and sixpence, and it was circulated among many musicians of the time who were mystified and intrigued by it. It then passed on to the library of the Welsh School in London, and finally came to rest at the British Museum where it is catalogued as BM Additional MS 14,905. In 1936 the University of Wales Press published a facsimile edition to make the manuscript available for universal study, and copies of this could, no doubt, be borrowed from many Welsh libraries. You would need to ask for it under its title Musica neu Beroriaeth given to it by Lewis Morris. At first sight the lettering is difficult to decipher until you become accustomed to the symbols used around 1600. However, transcribed into modern lettering it becomes more legible. The two hands are separated by a horizontal line with the bass chords below, and the treble above the line. The angular strokes above the treble (/) indicate that the three notes must be struck not as a chord but as individual notes beginning from the bottom. If the strokes were written in the opposite direction (\) then the notes would be played from the top downwards. I have transcribed the manuscript into more conventional music in Illustration BB. But we will have to pass through another stage before discovering the correct notes. In the music grammars or treatises already mentioned it is stated that these particular pieces, the Clymau Cytgerdd, from pages 2334 in the manuscript should be played in the Cras gywair. This tuning is given as a
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diagram on p. 108 of ap Huw's manuscript. On the left are the strings, while on the right the tuning of those strings is illustrated: the B strings must all be tuned down to A, and the F strings down to E. This gives us a pentatonic scale of five notesa scale very common in primitive music and in folk music throughout the world. (You will produce a pentatonic scale on the piano if you play just the black notes.) Illustrations C and CC show the Cras gywair tuning. Now we need to transcribe BB so that all the F strings sound E and the B strings sound A, resulting in the transcription of the Clymau Cytgerdd on pages 2024. This element of re-tuning the harp strings, what is technically called scordatura, has not been utilized by earlier interpreters of ap Huw's music, although the device is apparent in the table of scales on p.108 of the manuscript. Marin Mersenne refers to a similar proceedure in France and Italy: certain strings must not be re-tuned, whereas all the others may be raised or lowered. He gives a scale of twenty-four strings and indicates eight notes which may not be varied, and these he calls the principal strings. In the Welsh musical grammars, and there are many of them, copied by scribes during the sixteenth century, we read: This is the Classification of String Music [meaning harp or crwth] . there are eight Principal Strings. Elsewhere we read: There are seven notes, and of the seven only four may be changed in pitch, and the others may not. (The writer of this treatise has confined himself to a scale of one octave. We shall discover that the strings C, D, and G are the notes which may not be changed or varied.) Now we come to my transcription of the Clymau Cytgerdd. In an elegy to the harper, Dafydd Maenan, who died Easter 1567, the poet, Wiliam Cynwal, in his sadness complains: Canodd y clymau, cwynynt, Cryf angerdd, ar gytgerdd gynt. (He played the clymau, all mourn [with] strong emotion, cytgerdd in his day.) Note the use here of the interruptive phrase, the sangiad. These clymau cytgerdd, therefore, were part of the repertoire of reputable harpers, not just the studies of young learners. lolo Goch, in a poem around 1397, enjoys listening to: Cytgerdd ddiddan, lân, lonydd (entertaining cytgerdd, pure, calm). The music is in the metre or measure of Mac y mwn hir, shown as: 1111 0000 1010 1111 0000 1011. These indicate the sequence of the chords to be usedthe 1 shows what we would call the tonic chord (but in second inversion); this would be called the cyweirdant, while the 0 chord would be called tyniad, but with the scordatura, it gives an unexpected chord of (from the lower notes) A,D,E, but no more extraordinary than what was printedB,D,F. I have added barlines, which may not tally with ap Huw's, and I have ignored without comment what I have considered to be his mistakes
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or omissions. Section 1 is called a cainc (literally a branch), which is followed by twenty-three variants with virtually the same harmonies for each cainc or variant, and forming a complete cwlwm (literally knot). Though the second variant appears simple and calm, the final cadence reveals two discords in the treblethe D and E together both times; but we should become used to this sound for the D and E, an octave lower, are already present in each tyniad chord. In my interpretation I have stretched some of these cadences with an extra beat; I cannot see how all those notes in the treble can be accommodated in so short a space! In the third variant the hands overlap, and I have indicated a sliding thumb over two stringsdescribed as a hanner crafiad (a half-scrape) in ap Huw's notes on p.35 of the manuscript. Elsewhere, this half-scrape might be with the back of the second or third fingernail, and, similarly, with the double-scrape (crafiad dwbl). In the second bar I have shown F flat (where I have written E natural earlier) just to illustrate that the harper would be playing different strings, whereas on a keyboard the same effect is not possible because only one note is available. I should point out that the several strings tuned in unison (E and F flat, and the two A's) give rise to the intriguing effect of echoing strings, which enhance the sound, even when, on paper, there are so many repetitive notes. In variant 5 the rhythm changes: the previous 4/2 time becomes 12/4 time; in other words, the simple quadruple changes to compound quadruple time. Variant 6 is not written out, but the instruction to play it states: The sixth to be played like the fifth, but raising the upper thumb by two stringsi.e. the upper thumb plays a third higher, giving treble E instead of C, and treble F instead of D (but sounding E). Similar instructions are given for later variants. Variants 12 and 13 use the device of crychu y fawd a shake of the thumb, which is a quick thumb trill on one string with the naila device not found in modern harp technique. It appears that harpists nowadays prefer to keep their nails very short. I have transcribed it as a trill or tremolando of four notes (but later on just three notes), but there might be more notes according to the skill and virtuosity of the harper. It should be understood that the technique of the harpists at the time of Robert ap Huw, and of William Penllyn, from whose book pages 23 to 34 were copied (these Clymau Cytgerdd), was quite different from present-day methods. The players used their nails, like lutenists and guitarists, and fast-repeating notes were considered to be an attractive embellishment of their style. This brilliant-sounding medieval nail-technique survives in the playing of South American folk and popular harpists; the harp was brought to them centuries ago by Spanish explorers and missionaries.
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Clyamu Cytgerdd
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Variants 18 to 24 have the treble in triplets; these, for the sake of clarity, I have written in common time. It is possible that they may also be faster as we approach the end of the cwlwm. They end abruptly; I wonder if they added a final chord of C major? Second inversion, of course! Thus we have twenty-four variants over a set pattern of chords. In this cwlwm the metre or measure was Mac y mwn hir. There are twenty-three further clymau (plural of cwlwm) from pp.28 to 34 of the manuscript, though only a few of the variants are shown. Their names and their chord progressions were: Macy mwn hir
1111 0000 1010 1111 0000 1011
Mac y mwn byr
1100 1111
Corffiniwr
1100 1011 1100 1011
Corsgoloff
1101 1001 011
Rhiniart
1001 1100 11
Cor Aldan
1110 1001 0001
Tresi Heli
1000 1110 0010 11
Wnsach
1111 0001
Corditulach
1001 1000 1001 11
Cor Finfaen
1011 0111 0110 11
Cor Wrcoc
1001 0110 11
Carsi
1000 1011 1000 1011
Brath yn ysgol
1011 1011 1011 1011 1011 1011
Fflamgwr gwrgan
1011 1011 0011 0011
Calchan
1100 1111 01
Brit odidog
0010 0010 1101 1101
Trwsgwl mawr
0000 1111 0000 1011
Tytyr bach
0011 0011
Mac y mynfaen
0011 0000 1100 1111
Toddf
0110 0011
Hattyr
0010 1100 1011
Mac y delgi
0111 011
Alban hyfaidd
1011 0100 0100 1011
Alfarch
0000 0000 1111 1111
I must hasten to add that the crwth-player noted his chords contrary to the harpist: the cyweirdant for the harpist is
marked 1, but for the crowther 0, and similarly the harpist's tyniad was marked 0, and 1 by the crythor. Peniarth MS 155, copied from a manuscript of Gruffudd Hiraethog, refers to this: Tyniad yn rhol y krythor yw kyweirdant yn rhol y telynior (Tyniad in the rule of the crowther is cyweirdant in the rule of the harper). The original manuscript was written, perhaps, around 1530, by Gruffudd especially for Richard Mostyn, the president of the first Caerwys Eisteddfod of 1523. It appears that Gruffudd Hiraethog would have been too young to have taken part in this eisteddfod and had died before that of 1567. It has often been observed that the titles of these measures are strange to Welsh eyes and ears; they are spelt variously in many manuscripts, and
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It has often been observed that the titles of these measures are strange to Welsh eyes and ears; they are spelt variously in many manuscripts, and lead one to believe that there must have been some Irish inflence at the time of Gruffudd ap Cynan in 1100. Hardly any two manuscripts agree on the spellings of these names, thus emphasizing that the art was normally transmitted by word of mouth and came to be written down only during the sixteenth century. It is curious that ap Huw has bungled badly in his copying of the first cwlwm; we have just studied the cwlwm in the Mac y mwn hir metre, yet, before each variant ap Huw has written the name of the other metres Corffiniwr, Corsgoloff etc., with their chord symbols, which, of course, do not fit those particular variants. Fortunately, this confusion does not persist, and his second cwlwm, Mac y mwn byr, follows on page 28 of the manuscript. This, and the following cwlwm in the Mac y delgi metre, are written out in full, but all the other twenty-one metres show only the first cainc. At the end of the Clymau Cytgerdd he writes: Terfyn y pedwar mesur ar hugain, yr un gainc ar bob mesur gan mwya. Mi briciais yn gyntaf Mac mwn hir, a Mac mwn byr, a Mac y delgi, a phedair cainc ar hugain ymhob un ohonynt, ac wedi hynny, y pedwar mesur ar hugain ar un gainc, ond newidio'r mesur fel y gwelwch. (The end of the twenty-four measures, mostly the same cainc on each measure. I wrote first Mac mwn hir, and Mac mwn byr, and Mac y delgi, and twenty-four ceinciau in each of them, and after that, the twentyfour measures on one cainc, but changing the measure, as you can see.) Because he used just one melody (cainc) throughout, the Clymau Cytgerdd appear monotonous, but they show the type of variant used; for instance, variants 9, 16, and 24 will have similar pattern, shape and decoration in whichever measure they are played. And if a crwth-player (crowther) plays with the harpist, then the leader will proclaim that he is going to play in a particular measure and the other will know which chords are appropriate. There are inconsistencies and aberrations in the manuscript which suggest that ap Huw himself did not pass through the demanding bardic school of study. He may have been copying from an older manuscript which he did not fully comprehend, although, in one of his poems, in an englyn which is written in his own hand (BM.14898), he claims that he was a master of music and that he had learnt all the music required of a pencerdd:
Prif geinciau pynciau y pencerddmi a'i gwn, Mi ganaf fy nghytgerdd; Dysgais golofnau dwysgerdd, Dysgais bedair cadair cerdd.
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(I know all the principal ceinciau of a pencerdd; I will perform my cytgerdd; I have learnt the profound colofnau, and I have learnt the four chairs of music.) Ceinciau=melodies. Pencerdd=chief musician. Colofnau (columns) and cadeiriau (chairs) are extended pieces of music of which, alas, we have no examplespossibly akin to the Awdl in poetry, an extended poem utilizing several metres. Undoubtedly, he was the last of the harpers to have played this ancient harp music of medieval times, for there is no trace of this style in later Welsh music. The manuscript contains almost a hundred pages (pages 1 to 14 are missing), with about thirty pieces of varying length called, Caniad, Gosteg, Profiad, Pwnc, but there are scores of names of other pieces also, both here and in many other sixteenth century manuscripts, and all those pieces of music have vanished without trace. On pages 33-4. I show a list of ornaments that appear in on page 35 of ap Huw's manuscript. No absolute indication of rhythm, duration and metre can be understood with certainty. Those who played this music played from memory and were taught by the penceirddiaid, the masters, without the aid of books. Likewise with poetry: the earliest bardic grammars were written during the fourteenth century, and it is likely that the musicians followed suit many generations later. Perhaps amateurs, well-off gentlemen of the age, or clerics, coaxed the harpers to devise a system of musical notation, so that they, too, could learn more of their highly secret craft and discipline. On page 106 Robert ap Huw gives the names and titles of pieces he had written elsewhere: And these I have pricked in another bookthis, of course, was written in Welsh, but he uses the Elizabethan term for writing or making a mark: pricioto prick. Sadly, only the one manuscript survives, though, in his will he bequeathed his books to his son, Henry Hughes. Robert ap Huw copied the Clymau Cytgerdd, pages 24 to 34, from the book of an earlier harper, William Penllyn, who graduated at the Caerwys Eisteddfod of 1567 as Pencerdd ac Athro (chief musician and teacher). The word cytgerdd, namely, cyd + cerdd (together + music), suggests performing together, and it is reasonable to presume that the harpist and the crwthplayer joined forces, for the chords and length of each piece are specified beforehand. The students would have to adhere strictly to the rules, but later, as fully graduated penceirddiaid, they might improvise, compose more freely, and extend the rules. Those who wished to pursue the harp in medieval times had to learn to play and recognize a specific number of these compositions before passing to a higher gradejust as in the bardic shools of poetry. This training was spread over many years, and poets and musicians often taught their own sons e.g. leuan Delynor followed by his son Edward, Siôn ap Rhys followed by Dafydd Llwyd, and, possibly, William Penllyn by Ieuan Penllyn and
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Hywel Llwyd or Hwlcyn Llwyd by Robert Llwydall mentioned at the Caerwys Eisteddfod of 1567. The most perplexing of all the problems of Robert ap Huw's manuscript is the question of keys and scales. So far, we have discussed only the Cras gywair, which, according to the diagram on page 108 of Musica, was a pentatonic scale. The music treatises state firmly that there were only five warranted scales to be used, namely, Crasgywair, Bragod gywair, Lleddf gywair, Gogywair and Isgywair. Yet from these five may be made any number of scales by treating them modally and starting the key-note from a different position, in the Cras gywair, as shown. The Cras gywair, then, gives five modal pentatonic scales. I have added the sol-fa equivalents; to readers of sol-fa they reflect very clearly the modal modal qualities of scales, and this subtlety must have been important in medieval timesso important, in fact, that one harper was drummed out of the profession by his fellows for his arrogance in daring to play before them in keys or scales that were forbidden by their laws of music! Robert ap Huw gives a diagram for tuning Lleddf gywair Gwyddyl, which, according to one treatise, is the same as Lleddf gywair. I hesitate to translate these purely musical terms into English, for they can lead would-be interpreters along wrong paths. Moreover, words have a habit of changing meaning over centuries. In John Davies's Dictionarum Duplex of 1632, and in Thomas Jones's Dictionary of 1688, lleddf is given as awry, oblique, askew, warped, while much later it came to mean sad and minor (as in minor key). Robert ap Huw has supplied two diagrams for Lleddf gywair Gwyddyl: on p.108: g a b c d e ghexatonic on p.109: g b b c d e gpentatonic I would choose the pentatonic as the more likely tuning, for he has added sharp signs below the two Bs to emphasize their being changed from A and B flat to B naturals. (Sharp signs (#) were formerly used to show a sharpening from flat to natural.) Sad to say, there is no piece in the Lleddf gywair in ap Huw's manuscript as far as we can tell, so we cannot verify and test the tuning. According to one treatise, in Peniarth 77, written by Sir Thomas Wiliems in 1576, the most common tuning was the Cras gywair. From a list of 130 pieces, seventy-one are in the Cras gywair, forty-three in the Bragod gywair, and sixteen in the Lleddf gywair. We do not have a contemporary account of these, but we know from the beautiful manuscript of John Jones, Gellilyfdy, written in 1605, that the Gogywair has a flattened third above the keynote. There is a manuscript of 1676 at the National Library of Wales in the hand of Gwilym Puw, one-time royalist soldier with Charles I, but by that year a recusant priest, which contains a drawing of a Welsh harp and the instructions on how to tune it. Ann Griffiths and Andre Schaefer discussed it in Welsh Music Vol.4 No.2. (1974/5). Gwilym Puw's draughtsmanship leaves much to be desired, for all the strings should lead into the
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Drawing of a Welsh harp by Gwilym Puw, 1676. neck of the harp rather than into the pillar, and his instructions for tuning the harp must be treated with cautionafter all, the old Welsh music had been superseded long before. Elsewhere, I have seen the Cras gywair called Bras gywair, but never Braidd gywair, as he calls it. Following his instructions it comes out as: g a a c d d ewhich is close! You will recall that ap Huw showed it as: g a a c d e e. Gwilym Puw's tuning for the Bragod gywair is: g a bb c d eb f, but I prefer to agree with the late Professor Thurston Dart that this was a scale of F major, though the tonality in the music, as we shall see, is a Dorian scale on the keynote G. For Gogywair Gwilym Puw gives: g a bb c d e f#. This matches the 1605 manuscript of John Jones, Gellilyfdy, who adds: 'Whichever note is chosen as keynotethe third above must be flattened'. I find that in the ap Huw MS the pieces in Gogywair have the
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Robert ap Huw's manuscript, p.44.
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keynote C which calls for the E flat above it; thus we have a scale of: c d eb f g a b. We are left with the final scale, lsgywair, also called Cywair tro tant; here, again, I agree with Thurston Dart that this has the tuning of B flat major, but the example I transcribe, Caniad San Silin, will again have a Dorian-mode flavour, as it invariably returns to the keynote C. However, the piece immediately before it, called Caniad Tro Tant, has the tonality of B flat major. It appears that on the old Welsh harps of the sixteenth century there were pegs or brays emerging from the stringholes, in Welsh called gwrachïod, (Mersenne called them harpions), which could be adjusted to press on the strings. In later times these brays caused a buzzing effect which added a percussive sound for dancing, but I believe that they were originally used to change the tuning on the strings. William Cynwal, a prolific poet who died in 1588, wrote: Ac ar y bont gorau bod, Yn wrych loyw, hen wrachïod. (And on the bridge [soundboard]the best, like a glowing hedge, old brays.) Huw Machno, in a cywydd to Robert ap Huw seeking a harp: Ceimion wrachïod cymwys Yn siarad pob teimlad dwys. (Curved/bent appropriate brays speaking with profound feeling.) However, I would like to propound the theory that these gwrachïod were intended on the Welsh harp to press on the string to cause it to sharpen by a half-tone or a whole-tone. This would cause the strings to become oblique, bent, awrylleddf. According to the grammars there are no oblique strings in the Cras gywair; we may surmise, therefore, that this was the basic tuning of the harp: g a a c d e e g. The Bragod gywair would have two lleddf stringsthe sharpened A to B flat, and the E to F. The lsgywair (or Tro tant) would be the same, but the E must be tuned or turned down to E flathence the name: Cywair tro tantthe key of the turned string. The Gogywair would have the B flat, but the F must be further sharpened to F#, though if the Cyweirdant (keynote) were sometimes C, as suggested earlier, the B flat must be further sharpened to B natural, and the E flattened to E flat, and the F# back to F natural (lleddf). The Lleddf gywair, as one might expect, would have the most lleddf stringstwo As tuned up to B natural, and the original top E, or lleddf F, up to G, giving a pentatonic scale of g b b c d e g g. It would be interesting to know if the gwrachïod could be used to sharpen a semitone and a whole-tone. This would be more satisfactory than tuning with the harp-key, for constantly retuning in this way would cause intonation problems; using the gwrach, just like the
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finger-levers on the neo-Irish harp or clarsach, does not unduly affect the intonation. You will find, transcribed, pieces in four of these keys:
1 lsquo;Clymau CytgerddCras gywair
g a a c d e e g (p. 20)
2 Caniad Marwnad Ifan ap y Gof (Elegy of Ifan son of the Blacksmith)Bragod gywair
g a bb c d e f g (p. 36)
3 Caniad Bach ar y GogywairGogywair
c d eb f g a b c (p. 39)
4 Caniad San SilinIsgywair (or Tro tant)
c d eb f g a bb c (p. 41)
Robert ap Huw's music has been discussed and transcribed many times by scholars from all over the world, but it appears that they have all avoided using these curious scales. The melodies were improvised on the small harp over strict patterns of chords; the harmony must not be evaluated in modern terms; it does not conform to any standards or rules that have been agreed upon since the sixteenth century. Rules were formulated so as to consolidate certain customs and practices which were already operative, and the medieval Welsh harpers conformed to their own styles and techniques just as bagpipers of Scotland clung to theirs. Although the music is not chromatic, there are changes in modality throughout, and sometimes one must wait for the coda (diwedd) and the cadences before the tonality is revealed. The Celtic snap. predominates, and the pentatonic scales are very similar to those heard in Irish harp and pipe music, but the chords and harmonies in the Bragod gywair and Gogywair come as a shock at first hearing, with their added sixths and major and minor sevenths. The musical treatises state that the alternating chords of cyweirdant and tyniad are in dispute with one another, yn ymrafaelu â'i gilydd; their purpose is to create a degree of dissonance and discomfort. William Llyn, a distinguished and very experienced poet, who flourished in the middle of the sixteenth century, observes on the chords and intervals in a poem soliciting a harp: Tri, phump, a deg, teg pob tant, Y cordia pob cyweirdant; Dau, pedwar, di-hap ydynt, A saith a naw sythion ynt: Ni cheir o'r rhain chwarae rhad, Na chywir dant, na chordiad. (Thirds, fifths and tenths, each string is fair, harmonizing each concord; seconds and fourths are hapless, and sevenths and ninths are stiff; no pleasing grace from these, no true string, nor concord.) William Llyn * expresses the nature of these harmonies; the thirds, fifths and tenths are the concordant notes of the cyweirdant, while the seconds, fourths, sevenths and ninths cause him some discomfort. As these intervals are found in the alternating chords, the tyniadau, their function is obviously to create a degree of discord and dissonance. It is significant that all the
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pieces we have examined so far end on a concord, cyweirdant, whatever the order or grouping of the chords beforehand. Robert ap Huw (MS p. 108) shows other scales, but these tunings would not be tolerated under the old rules. In Cywair chwith, the Strange Key, every single string is tuned a tone or semitone out! However, I find Cywair yr Athro Fedd interesting, with both D and A tuned down a third to B and F respectively. If this were an oral art, how on earth did they remember these complex tunings? I can only surmise that they may have also used another system of notation, using numbersnot so different from the Gogwyddor i ddysgu y prikiad (literally: alphabet to learn the priking): an explanation of the symbols from p. 35 of the Robert ap Huw MS.
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Scales or keys
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tablature of lute-players, so that 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 in Cywair yr Athro Fedd would sound g f a c b d e g. On the other hand, I have seen South American harpists who add an extra note to their octavesay an F and an F sharp, giving eight notes to the octave rather than the usual seven! But the perversity of these complex later tunings indicate an art in decline. The important Eisteddfodau at Caerwys in 1523 and 1567 were organized to give authority and distinction to the more reputable of the bards who were losing the patronage of the dwindling Welsh gentry; the livelihoods of the bards and musicians were imperilled by an imported, less demanding, popular culture. With the destruction of the Catholic Church and the dissolution of the monasteries, they lost even more patrons. They were threatened also by the changing tastes and attitudes brought about by the Renaissance and the repudiation of the accepted medieval ideas and customs. This decline they faced throughout the sixteenth century. The poets and musicians always celebrated Christmas, Easter and Whitsun at the houses of the gentry. William Cynwal's Elegy of 1567 to the harper, Dafydd Maenan, tells how he spent Easter regularly for twenty-six years at Plas Iolyn, near Pentrefoelas, at the home of Dr Elis Prys. Ironically, Prys was one of the very people appointed by Thomas Cromwell to attend to the dissolution of the monasteries in Wales. Another was Sir John Prys, or Price (c.150255), of Brecon and Hereford, who published the first book in Welsh, Yn y Lhyvyr hwn, in 1546; his wisdom and perception in saving unique Welsh manuscripts from the abbeys and monasteries enabled them to be rescued from the fiery Protestants who wished to destroy all things appertaining to the old Catholic Faith. It was he who wrote, in Latin, a description of Wales which was translated by Dr Humphrey Llwyd and included in David Powell's Historie of Cambria). Christmas 1595 saw thirteen harpers, crowthers and poets being welcomed at Llewenni Manor, near Denbigh; a Gwyneddon manuscript at Bangor lists the music they played: almost one hundred melodies, all of them imported from England. No wonder poets exclaimed that no more were their cywyddau appreciated: instead, according to Edward ap Raff (flourished 15781606),they were called upon to provide foolish ditties and silly songs. O chais un iachus wyneb Gywydd o newydd i neb, Dyri a fyn dau eraill A charol lled-ffol i'r llaill; Mae'r byd a'r gelfyddyd faith Mewn dameg yn mynd ymaith.
(Though one of healthy face may commission a new cywydd, two others will demand a ditty and another a foolish carol; our world and our agelong art in riddles are disappearing.)
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Caniad Marwnad Ifan ap y Gof(Elegy of Evan,Son of the Blacksmith )in the Bragod gywair
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Caniad Bach ar y Gogywair (The Small Caniad on the Gogywair
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Caniad San Silin (Song of St Silin) in the Isgywair key
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The datgeiniaid One aspect of Welsh music should be discussed, namely the performances of the datgeiniaid, or atkaneiaid, as David Powell called them. They would have sung or declaimed cywyddau, englynion and awdlau to this harp and crwth music in ap Huw's manuscript, for the treatises state: A r rhain a ddyly datgeiniaid eu gwybod, a chanu gyda phob un a naddynt, a bod yn deuluaidd ac yn ddigrif, ac arwain hen gywyddau a geiriau digrif'(and these are the pieces that all datgeiniaid should know, and sing/chant with each that they have wrought; and they must be familiar and amusing, and they must perform old cywyddau with pleasant/witty words). As we have seen, the music followed strict patterns of form and harmony, but we have no idea how the singers actually performed. Did they merely chant the words in time with the music, or did they create and improvise their own tunes and countermelodies? As I mentioned earlier, the verb canu can refer to composing, singing or declaiming a poem. We may never know definitely, for no description of their performancees has yet come to light. Giraldus Cambrensis in Descriptio Kambriae (1194) mentions that the Welsh poets, the datgeiniaid (cantores) and the orators (recitatores) kept the pedigrees of their princes in books written in Welsh. The scholar, H.M. Chadwick, writes of the AngloSaxon equivalent, the scop, and he quotes from the poem, Beowulf: he is represented as singing or reciting, and mention is made of the harp. There was a similar class in Ireland, the recairi, who also sang the praises of their leaders. A somewhat late source, The Memoirs of the Right Honourable the Marquis of Clanricarde (1722), describes such a scene: The action and pronunciation of the poem in the presence of the principal person it related to was performed with a great deal of ceremony in a consort of vocal and instrumental music. The poet himself said nothing, but directed and took care that everyone else did his part right. The Bards, having first had the composition from him, got it well by heart, and now pronounced it orderly, keeping even pace with a harp, touched upon that occasion, no other musical instrument being allowed of for the said purpose than this alone. Joan Rimmer in The Irish Harp reproduces a cartoon which appeared in John Derricke's The Image of Ireland, written in 1578; the drawing shows the lord at his table with his family, the poet behind him, and the recaire or rakry, standing with arms outstretched, declaiming his poem to the music of the harper seated next to him on the floor. Joan Rimmer also quotes a pompously disapproving account of an English agent, Thomas Smith:
Now comes the rimer that made the rime, with his rakry. The rakry is he that shall utter the rime and the rimer himself sits by with the captain [chieftain] very proudly. He brings with him also his harper who plays all the while that the rakry sings the rime. Also he hath
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Reciter and harper performing before a chief. John Derricke, Image of Ireland, 1581. his bard, which is a kind of foolish fellow, who must also have a horse given him. The harper must have a new saffron shirt and a mantle and a hackney; and the rakry must have twenty or thirty kine and the rimer himself horse and harness, with a nag to ride on, a silver goblet, a pair of beads of coral, with buttons of silverand this, with more, they look you to have, for destruction of the commonwealth and to the blasphemy of God; and this is the best thing that the rimers cause them to do. If we disregard the racial and religious prejudice and the political intolerance, one can reconstruct from these accounts the nature of the function of the datgeiniad, which appears to have been identical to that of the recaire or rakry. One observer states that the performer pronounced it orderly, keeping even pace with the harp, while the other states his harper plays all the while that the rakry sings the rime. My instinct, for what it is worth, tells me that the datgeiniad chanted his poems in time to the set rhythms of the harp. On the other hand, the scholar Glyn M. Ashton, writing (in Welsh) in Llên Cymru (Vol.14 3/4, 1984) ventures: Personally I do not believe that the datgeiniaid sang to airs or melodies; they would have chanted or declaimed. One recalls that Sir John Morris-Jones observed that rhythm was the root of all primitive poetry. The pencerdd or bardd teulu (the master poets) would always have with him his entourage of datgeiniad and harper, with each being paid by the prince or patron sums of money and giftslargesse, which were specifically detailed in the Welsh laws since the
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time of Hywel Dda in 950. Professor Caerwyn Williams observes that: the Welsh bards, like their Irish counterparts, formed a close corporation, having a hierarchical order of dignities, a professional solidarity and esprit de corps and an elaborate system of training recruits. (The Poets of the Welsh Princes p. 14.) Siôn Tudur, John Tudor, a poet who died in 1602, complains, in his Elegy for Poets and Musicians, of the death of four poets, ten harpers, and seven crowthers: Telynorion, gweision gwych, Crythorion, croywaith irwych. (Harpers, excellent servants, crowthers, mellow, gracefully fresh). There is an inference here that the poets held precedence over the harpers and the crowthers. At least six elegies were written to commemorate the death, in 1580, of a great patron of poesy, Siôn Salbri (John Salusbury), of Rug Manor, near Corwen, one of the commissioners of the 1567 Eisteddfod at Caerwys, who often entertained the musicians and poets at his home. One of these poems, by Lewis Dwnn, says: Ei farwnad a fu oerni Uwchlaw tant ei chlywed hi. (His Elegy, heard above the sound of the harp, caused an icy chill.) The poems written around 1600 indicate that the bardic tradition was losing its social function, and indeed that the social fabric itself was disintegrating. It was the beginning of the anglicization of the gentry which resulted before the end of the eighteenth century in their complete alienation from the national life of Wales. Elegies to numerous harpers of the time grieve at the collapse of the bardic order. Siôn Tudur again: Galar i bawb, gwael yw'r byd, A gwael fydd y gelfyddyd. (Grief for all, vile is the world, and poorer is our art.) William Cynwal on the death of the harper, Robert ap Hywel Llwyd: Gwae ni yn hir gan wanhau Gardd dyner y gerdd dannau. (Long shall we grieve the weakening of the tender garden of harp music.) Again, William Cynwal on the death of leuan Delynor (leuan the Harper, 1567): Farewell sound, farewell Muse and cywyddhe knew the measures of musicwho is left alive who knows it now?and his sad grave, a full coffer of music, is the sealed chest of Clymau Cytgerdd.
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I have dwelt at length with this body of music, for, though it may have become corrupt by the time of Robert ap Huw, nevertheless, it illustrates the essential nature of the music in Wales during the Middle Ages, flourishing alongside the poetry of the bards. The titles of the measures suggest an intermingling with Irish bards and musicians, and we know that a whole body of music has disappeared in Ireland also. The ap Huw manuscript is a relic of what must have been a highly organized art. It is sad that no other manuscripts have survived in Ireland or Wales, but hardly surprising since it was an oral tradition. The Eisteddfodau of 1523 and 1567 at Caerwys were attempts to consolidate the status of the bards in the face of competition from baser rhymesters and musicians. Here is a list of the musical graduates of 1567 compiled by D.J. Bowen, and published in Llên Cymru in 1952. It would have been interesting to know how many failed, but this is not disclosed. There is also a fine account of Eisteddfodau Caerwys by Gwyn Thomas (Cardiff 1968): Cerdd DantTelyn [Harpists] Penceirddiaid: [Master musicians]: Hywel Llwyd. Siôn ap Rhys Bencerdd o Fôn, William Penllyn, Dafydd Llwyd ap Siôn ap Rhys, Edwart ap Ieuan Delynor, Robert ap Hywel Llanfor, Hwmffre Goch, Tomas Annwyl. Disgyblion Penceirddaidd: [Apprentices of the master musician]: Robert Llwyd, Ieuan Penllyn, Risiart Glyn, Llywelyn Hwsmon [Lewis Llanfor, but not Ll. Hwsmon, in another MS]. Disgyblion Disgyblaidd: [Amenable apprentices, i.e. amenable to instruction]: Huw Dai, Huw ap Morus o'r Pant Glas yn Llangadwaladr, Siams Morlais, Elis Gruffudd, Siôn Niwbwrch. Disgyblion Ysbas: [Apprentices for a time]: leuan ap Maredudd, Lewis Berain, Gwalchmai ap Dafydd, Risiart Llwyd. Cerdd DantCrwth [Crowthers] Penceirddiad: Siams Eutun, Ieuan Penmon, Tomas Môn, Robert ap Rhys Gutun, Tomas Grythor Ddall, Siôn ab Ednyfed. Disgybl Penceirddaidd: Siôn Ddu Grythor Disgyblion Disgyblaidd: Tô mas Llwyd o Bowys, Robert ap Ieuan Llwyd, Tomas Fychan Grythor, Edwart Grythor Hir, Wiliam ap Ednyfed, Rhys Grythor o Lansannan, Rhys Grythor o Gerrig-y-drudion. Disgyblion Ysbas: Risiart Conwy, Robert Conwy, Siôn Alaw, Crythor Llwyd Marchedd. The datgeiniaid are mentioned in only one manuscript, and that may not be reliable; however, here are the names: Dafydd Caeo, Tomas Llanrwst, Gruffudd Maenan, Tomas Atgeiniad, Risiart Dyfi, Rhys Machynlleth. Apparently there were no grades for the datgeiniaid.
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Harpists and patrons in the seventeenth century. That indefatigable researcher, the late Bob Owen, Croesor, found evidence of the activities of three Welsh musicians: Lewis Penmon, harpist to Sir Henry Salusbury of Llewenni, Heilin (sometimes called ap Heilin or Peilin), a fine crowther, and Dic Pibydd (Dick the Piper), player of the Welsh pibgorn. The three together played before King James I two or three times a year; he was so impressed and pleased with their music that he granted them twelve pence a day while they lived. Other Welsh musicians would appear at court on St David's Day and other feast days. As I indicated earlier, these musicians might be brought to court by another person; for instance, the court accounts for 1617/18 mention: To Ellis North the Queen's Majesty Servante in the behalf of himself and his fellowes for presenting two severall plaiers before his Majesty at Christmas 1617. In the court records we read of Philip Squire's appointment as harpist in 1618; he replaced the Irishman, Cormack MacDermott, who was first appointed in 1605, according to Peter Holman, a researcher into the musicians of this period. When MacDermott was given a pension of twenty pence a day with livery in October 1605, in consideration of his service done in the art of music, he was the first harper to be employed at the English court since the death of William More, fifty years earlierMore, the man who is blind and the principal harper in England as he was described in 1520 (Early Music Vol.XV No.2, May 1987). That he was not replaced at his death in 1565, Holman continues, is a sign that the literate musical culture of the Elizabethan Age had no further use for the ancient tradition of improvising epic song to the accompaniment of the harp. With chromatic instruments like the lute and virginals readily available, the Elizabethan Age also had no further use for the small diatonic harps that More and his contemporaries would have used. It appears that MacDermott was employed not only as harpist but as a messenger (by Lord Robert Cecil) for Her Majesty's special service from Cork and Dublin (ibid. p.189). But he was also a composer, and his manuscripts are now found at the Yale Music Library in the USA. His pieces are mostly dances for consorts of three to five instruments, precursors of the well-known consorts soon to be written by William Lawes (1602-45). It is suggested that he may have played some of these dances on the harp alone, and composed or improvised divisions where each variant of a dance would be broken up into shorter and faster notes. L.E. Nordstrom in his English Lute Duet and Consort Lesson (1976) has argued that the consort tradition is older than previously accepted, and that the divisions-principle evolved from the earlier repertory of treble viol and ground-bass lute duets. Lawes may have used some of MacDermott's music as a basis for his Harp Consorts. When Ben Johnson's The Irish Masque at Court was performed at Whitehall in 1613 and 1614, MacDermott probably provided the music required from two harps.
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Johnson's text includes a song sung by a bard to two harps, and a dance of gentlemen in Irish mantles, to a solemne musique of harpes. MacDermott would have played the Irish harp with wire strings, but it appears that during his lifetime an extra row of eight strings was added at the middle octave (just above middle C) to accomodate additional chromatic notes (see Dalway or Fitzgerald Harp [1621] by Michael Billinge and Bonnie Shaljean: Early Music, May 1987). When MacDermott was succeeded by Philip Squire in 1618 we find that Squire was paid an additional £30 a year to teach Lewis Evansa child of great dexterity in music to play on the Irish harp and other musical instruments which he did until 1628. Mind you, he had to wait a long time for his fees; in July 1629 he was paid £210 for seven years arrears due the previous Christmas for his charge and pains in maintaining and teaching of Lewis Evans to play upon the Irish harp. (So he had also to feed and look after him!) Lewis Evans is listed as a lute-player in 1633, but, curiously, as Lewis Williams or Evans alias Williams on other occasions. In an old Cambrian Register (Vol.I p.596-7) I found a reference to: Feb 14 1620. A warrant to Sir William Vunall, Treasurer of H.M. Chamber [James I] to pay unto Lewis Williams, a youth that playeth upon the harp to his Majesty and the Prince, the sum of £20 which his Majesty has graciously please to bestow upon him in regard that he had been lately visited with sickness. He must have been the harpist later mentioned by Samuel Pepys in his diary in September 1666, when Pepys met John Hingston, organist of the Chapel Royal, who told him that many of the King's musicians were ready to starve, they being five years behind-hand for their wages; nay, Evans, the famous man upon the harp, having not his equal in the world, did the other day die for mere want, and was fain to be buried at the alms of the parish and carried to the grave in the dark without one link [candle], but that Mr. Hingston met it by chance, and did give 12 pence to buy two or three links. He says all must come to ruin at this rate, and I believe him. Poor Lewis Evans had seen appointments by three kingsJames I, Charles I and II, and yet died of want. With the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 a new harpist was appointedCharles Evansand every year he was given £5 to buy strings in addition to his salary: Grant to Charles Evans for his skill in music and service to the King of the fee of 20 pence per day, and £16.2s.8d. for livery. In 1663 there is a warrant to pay him musician to His Majesty in Ordinary for the Italian harp, the sum of £15 for a harp bought by him for His Majesty's service. It has been suggested that he was Lewis Evans's son, but this is unlikely in view of the desperate
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plight of the old man when he died of want in 1666, unless, of course, Charles Evans was also in arrears with his salary and unable to help. The introduction of the triple harp The Italian harp was a new type of instrument which had already been introduced into England during the reign of Charles I by a famous French harpist, Jean le Flelle. King Charles (or his French Queen, Henrietta Maria) had coaxed him to the English court in 1629. In his book, Harmonie Universelle, published in 1635, Marin Mersenne describes the harp that he used, the triple harp, with three rows of strings. He adds: M. le Flesle [sic] plays the harp perfectly. The triple harp is now considered to have originated in Italy around 1600, and was first played by Orazio Michiwe are informed by Mersenne. The Italian artist, Domenico Zampieri (15811641) in his painting of King David, which can be seen at the Palace of Versailles near Paris, shows the ornate triple harp of his time. The three ranks of strings are clearly shown; the two outer rows were tuned alike, in a diatonic scale (say, in C major like the white notes of the piano), and the inner row of strings would give the intermediate chromatic notes (or the equivalent of the black notes on the piano). The harpist would tune the two outer ranks to correspond with whatever key he was to play in, and he would tune the centre row to give the corresponding chromatic notes. It was a difficult instrument to play, and expensive to string, for some of them had nearly a hundred strings, and, indeed, it soon fell out of fashion, except in Wales, where scores of Welsh triple harps were built during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Michael Morrow, in his far-reaching article on the Renaissance harp in Early Music, October 1979, quotes the German theorist, Johannes Cochlaeus, writing in 1511: the English at present are said to play a harp with three rows of strings. This statement must be considered as hearsay and should be viewed with caution until some further evidence is forthcoming. Morrow enlightens us on double harps and illustrates his essay with musical examples from Italy, Spain and South America. Charles Evans in 1660 may have been the first Welshman to adopt the triple harp, but it is said that the first actually made in Wales, some years later, was by Elis Sion Siamas of Llanfachraeth in Merionethhe was said to be a harpist to Queen Anne. The Welsh triples were designed to rest on the left shoulder, contrary to the European custom which is illustrated in the painting of King David with the harp resting on his right shoulder, and his right hand playing the treble. A triple harp, possibly of this period, survives at the National Folk Museum of Wales at St Fagan's with a carved cherub on the front column; it cannot be Welsh for it is a right-shoulder harp. I
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Triple harp, possibly Italian, seventeenth or eighteenth century, now at the Welsh Folk Museum (formerly at Powys Castle, Welshpool).
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Le Roi David by Domenico Zampieri (15811641). sometimes speculate that it could be the harp that Charles Evans imported from Italy in 1660or a copy of it; the sound-board and the tuning-pins look more modern, but those could have been altered later. It is said that Humphrey Humphreys bought the harp from the harpist of George III for 300 guineassurely, a vastly exaggerated sumand, later, it was shared by his two nephews, Edward and Henry Humphreys of Welshpool, both fine harpists. The latter won the silver harp at Brecon in 1822 and in Welshpool in 1824, and was domestic harper at Powys Castle.
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While the Welsh harpers continued to play their harps during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with less patronage and encouragement than in former times, Welsh harp-makers were not slow to innovate, improve and enlarge. Some of them worked in London. There is a triple harp now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London with, inside the sound-box, a label inscribed: David Evans, instrument maker in Rose Court near Rose Street, Covent Garden, London 1736. Edward Jones called him Old Evan who lived in London about the beginning of the eighteenth century, is said to have been a famous harp-maker and instructor of John Richards in his art. But most harpists clung to the single harp, for only the finest players could cope with the complex technique of the triple. Even by the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Revd Thomas Price, (1787 1848), known as Carhuanawc, a noted antiquarian, observed that several still played the single harp, and on page 20 of his Literary Remains Vol.II, he has drawn the harp from memory: it was between 3 and 4 feet high or thereabouts. When he [Old Sam, the harper] sat down to play he crossed his feet, so that the back of one foot touched that of the other, and let the bottom of the harp rest on the calves of his legs. Blind John Parry The most famous eighteenth-century harper was blind John Parry (1710- 82). He probably began playing the single harp as a child in the remote Llyyn Peninsulahe was born at Bryn Cynan, near Nefyn, and he may have received his early patronage at Cefn Amwich Manor nearby. Unfortunately, there are no accounts extant for this period at Cefn Amwich which might have helped us to trace his early life. Later he became known as Blind Parry of Rhiwabon (near Wrexham), when he was domestic harper to both the first and second Sir Watcyn Williams Wynn of Wynnstay. But Parry had already made a name for himself all over England and Wales; there are accounts of his concerts in London, Cambridge, Oxford, Leeds and also in Dublin. It appears that the great Handel admired his playing, and Parry would delight in playing Handel's music on the harp. The Leeds Mercury in 1742 gives an account of one of his programmes: music by Corelli, Vivaldi, Geminiani, a Grand Concerto by Mr Handel, and some English and Scotch airs to round off the evening. The Handel Harp Concerto in B flat was the one written for another Welshman, William Powell, harpist to the Prince of Wales, for whom Handel wrote several orchestral parts in dramatic works like Julius Caesar, Saul and Alexander Balus. The harp would be featured obbligato during some of the arias: for instance, it would accompany a soprano soloist in Hark! he strikes the golden Iyre in Alexander Balus, with orchestral supportjust as the obbligato trumpet is used by Handel in the aria The Trumpet shall sound in The Messiah. William Powell died in 1750,
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Blind John Parry (1710-83). and Lewis Morris in a letter to Parry urged him to petition the Prince of Wales for the vacancy. Another harpist who may have played for Handel was Thomas Jones who was sometime harpist to the first Duke of Chandos at Cannons, just north of London. The Chandos Anthems were written by Handel while he was resident composer there between 1717 and 1720, and the opera Esther appeared in 1720 which included an obbligato harp part. There was a band of musicianssingers and instrumentalistsat Cannons, who also helped with various household duties. Handel's Harp Concerto is fascinating in its scoring; the strings of the orchestra are muted throughout so as to give a more delicate accompaniment, and the violas, cellos and basses play pizzicato during the first and
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last movements in imitation of the plucked harp. Handel added two recorders who doubled the first and second violin parts. When the concerto came to be published it was catalogued among the Organ Concertos as Opus 4 No.6. No doubt Handel would have used it as an organ concerto as well, though the first performance was with harp (and a lute) in 1736 as an interlude during a performance of Alexander's Feast. I suspect, though, that the work may have started as a solo harp sonata since the orchestra, for much of the Concerto, merely duplicates and pre-states the harp part. Similarly, the Organ Concerto in F, Opus 4 No.5, started as a Recorder Sonata, and Handel added supporting orchestral parts and ritornellos here and there to dress it up as a concerto rather than a solo sonata. John Parry's playing inspired the poet Thomas Gray to complete his ode The Bard; in a letter of 1757 Gray writes from Cambridge Mr. Parry has been here and scratched out such ravishing blind harmony, such tunes of a thousand years old, with names enough to choke you, as have set all this learned body a dancing, and inspired them with due respect to my old bard, his countryman, whenever he shall appear. Mr. Parry, you must know, has set my Ode in motion again, and has brought it at last to a conclusion. The development of canu penillion Parry published several collections of music in London, beginning with Antient British Music in 1742, containing twenty-four airs in two parts, yet without titles. In 1761 there appeared A Collection of Welsh, English and Scotch Airs with new variations, Four New Lessons for Harp or Harpsichord, composed by John Parry, and Twelve Airs for Guitar. (These Lessons we would call sonatassome of Handel's sonatas were first published as Lessons; indeed, Parry's Lessons had been ignored for many generations until I came across them at the British Museum in 1959 and first broadcast them in a recital on the BBC Third Programme.) In 1781 Parry published British Harmony, a collection of forty-two old airs, although a few are of English origin. In 1745, with the help of his amanuensis, Evan Williams, a native of Llangybi, near Pwllheli, Parry intended to produce Part II of Antient British Music with
tunes never before published and to render the work more agreeable the Songs in the Antient British will be set to them, also attemped in English verse as the language will admit of, which will show the nature of singing with the Harp, Violin etc. at this time by the Welsh at their Musical MeetingsSubscriptions are taken at Five Shillings each (being the full payment) by the compilers John Parry at his house in Jermyn Street and Evan Williams next door to the
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Golden Head in Great Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, where a specimen of the work may be seen. The book was never published, perhaps for want of subscriptions, but one day, while I was browsing in the Parry Library at the Royal College of Music in search of some Italian harp music, the librarian offered to show me their rare copy of Antient British Music. You can imagine my delight and excitement when I found, bound with it and uncatalogued, the Specimen of Part II, the 1745 project which never saw publication, and in Evan Williams's writing. In the manuscript I found eight songs with Welsh words and some translated into English: 1 Gallu Cariad The Power of Love on the tune Pencraig 2 Gadael Tir Leave Land 3 A Phrynn sy ar 4 Syr Harri Ddu Black Sir Harry 5 Ymddiddan Dialogue (tune: Malldod Dolgellaua Duet) 6 Gwên Dando 7 Harp Melody without title with two lines only of penillion 8 Calon Drom Heavy Heart They are set, as was customary during the eighteenth century, in two partstreble and figured bassthe latter indicating the harmony. The occasional trills are added so that they might be played on violin or flute. There are also three half-pages threaded into the manuscript: 1 A version of Song No.6 with small differences. 2 An attempt to transcribe some of Robert ap Huw's manuscript. 3 Song from Ye Tragedy of Tamurlaine by Jonathan Martin c.1736, also a short melody, possibly by Evan Williams, which could have fitted the same wordsTo thee, O gentle sleep alone, is owing all our Peace. 4 Setting in two parts of the Litany in Welsh, probably by Evan Williams. 5 A movement in six-eight time, a Siciliana in A majorunfinished. 6 Short, unfinished, movement in A major in common time. These two movements might have been an attempt by Parry or Williams at a harp lesson or sonata. Finally, on the last page of the manuscript, there is a list of thirty-one tunes that Evan Williams intended to publish, some of which have never been included in later collections. The significance of the manuscript lies in its clear indication of the singing styles of 1745 for the first time, and points to the surprising origins of penillion singing with the harp. The first song is Gallu Cariad set to the melody of Pencraig composed by the seventeenth-century harper, William Owen, Pencraig. The style is
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From the Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards (1794 edition) Edward Jones's setting of a verse by Lewis Morris. reminiscent of one of the songs from the ballad-opera, The Beggar's Opera, namely What shall I do to show how much I love her?originally from Henry Purcell's Diocletian, but incorporated by John Gay into his Beggar's Opera. The second song is sung to the air Gadael Tir, a very popular air with the ballad singers, but here the harp begins alone, as in canu penillion; the singer enters with his words on the fifth bar Tyred ymaith gyda mi (Come away along with me), and sings the same melody as the harp. Bars 8, 9, 10 are slurred to one long syllableas in an operatic aria. Here are two customs which have not been permitted in penillion singing since the nineteenth century. In the third song, A Phrynn sy ar(this sounds like a corruption of an English title), an eight-line stanza is set over a 32-bar melody, as follows:
Syr Harri Ddu (No.4) is set similarly:
So that a four-line pennill (stanza) is spread over a binary tune of sixteen bars. To anyone acquainted with presentday penillion singing this practice must seem very strange. Nowadays a singer must improvise his own melody to the accompaniment of the traditional harp tune; he must observe the note-for-each-syllable rule, which precludes any slurring of vowels, and there should be no gaps or rests of long durationmore than a beatduring the setting. As Evan Williams's surprising specimens were so different from current practice I immediately searched for other evidence of eighteenth-century penillion singing, and, indeed, came upon Edward
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Gadael Tir (Leave Land)
In Evan Williams's 1745 setting of Gadael Tir the harp begins alone, then the singer enters with Tyred ymaith gyda mi but following the line of the melody, contrary to the presentday custom in penillion singing.
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Jones's examples in his Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards, first published in 1784, which confirmed this custom and technique: There are several kinds of pennill metres that may be adapted and sung to most of the following tunes; and some part of a tune being occasionally converted into a symphony. One set of words is not, like an English song, confined to one tune but commonly sung to several. The skill of the pennill singers is admirable. According to the metres of their penillion they strike into the tune in the proper place, and conduct it with wonderful exactness to the symphony or the close. While the harp to which they sing is perhaps wandering in little variations and embellishments, their singing is not embarrassed, but true to the fundamental tune. By symphony he means the instrumental partthe harp accompaniment when the singer ceases. It appears, then, that the singer sang the air true to the fundamental tunequite contrary to present-day custom, and the thought of a harpist improvising his accompaniment would be anathema to our contemporary penillion singers! On page 174 of the 1794 edition of Relicks we find a setting of Lewis Morris's verse: Er a welais dan y ser (from Caniad y Gog i Feirionydd) to the melody of Gadael y Tir, a variant of Evan Williams's version; it is only to be expected that the airs would vary from one another according to the harpist from whom they were learnt. The style of both the Williams and the Jones settings is identicalJones's perhaps more sophisticated and elegant, but, then, Williams had not yet prepared his manuscript finally for the press. What is significant to us is that Jones has placed his setting with his other arrangements without any allusion to the fact that it is what we would call a penillion setting. To him it was not distinct from his other songs; neither did Evan Williams draw attention to any differences; his first song, set to the tune Pencraig, begins with the harp, so does his No.5, the duet, but their style is exactly the same as for the other six; the words enter after some bars, and we are aware of rests for the singers, sometimes of two bars. Otherwise, their style is identical. It appears to me that whereas penillion singing nowadays is a separate craft, during the eighteenth century no such distinction existed. The normal, standard singer and the penillion singer were one and the same person. The harp was the accompanying instrument at all times, and it is possible that the separation occurred when the piano began to supersede the harp during the second quarter of the nineteeth century with the new repertoire of drawing-room ballads, which became the rage of Victorian families. Lewis Morris, in a letter to Owen Meyrick in December 1738 writes:
I need not tell you that it is a custom in most counties of North Wales to sing to the harp certain British verses in rhyme, called pennills, upon certain subjects. Three or four kinds of them can adapt
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and sing the measures of any of the tunes in use among them, either in common or triple times making some part of the tune a symphony as in Italian operas, motets, and concertos. These Pennills are in stanzas of several kinds, some 3, 4 and 5 lines or verses. Note that the term canu penillion was not used by Morris; this nomenclature is more recent. Edward Jones only occasionally added the words in his arrangements in the Relicks; he inserted Welsh words to only seven out of the hundred melodies he published in 1794. Perhaps he thought that it was up to the singer to select his own words from the body of the book and fit them to the harp airs. Indeed, the Relicks contain a remarkable collection of verses, called Penillion, which might well have disappeared had Jones not published them. The changes, and the separation of penillion singing into its own particular field, are commented upon by the second John Parry, known as Bardd Alaw (also editor of several collections of Welsh music); he observes about 1830 that there were developments during his time, and now he uses the term penillion singing specifically. Singers, he said, began to chant notes in harmony with the harp tunes rather than in unison. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries singers sang only verses in the free metresnever cywyddau and englynion. The art of singing or declaiming of the old complex metrical poetry had disappeared with the last of the professional harpists and datgeiniaid in Elizabethan times; theirs were the songs of the privileged, cultivated classes who had virtually forsaken the Welsh language and its literature. A lighter form of singing now predominated, stimulated by the free metres, with ballads and songs from over the border and from the theatres of London, imported and circulated by ballad-mongers who did not necessarily live by their literary effortsthey might have been drovers, farmers, soldiers, sailors, parsons or vagabonds. This lighter stream of song had surely flourished during previous generations, but at a lower stratum of society, and at that time it was beneath the dignity of the professional bards to be associated with it. Singers, pipers, harpers and balladmongers would roam the country to entertain in fairs and taverns, and as the professional minstrels disappearedwith their highly organized artthe popular entertainers replaced them. Though I use the terms light and popular I do so to distinguish the new poetry from the older complex metres; nevertheless, many fine poets like Edward Morris (d.1689) and Huw Morris (d.1709) contributed beautiful poetry for these melodies. They also made use of cynghanedd (the organized internal rhymes and assonances), but now freely, and without the ponderous discipline of the old bardic grammars. They produced the touching, warm carols that were heard at Christmas, springtime (May carols), and summertime, which were akin to the folk poetry and folk songs of the people. By the middle of the nineteenth century our
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modern penillion singing had taken shape, and a new dignity was thrust upon the art, principally by a very accomplished exponent, Idris Fychan, a Welsh cobbler who lived in Manchester, who wrote an essay on canu penillion which was awarded a prize at the Chester Eisteddfod of 1866. This was later published by the Cymmrodorion Society, since when it has been regarded as the textbook of the art. Idris Fychan, by setting the bardic metrical poetry, bestowed upon the settings a new complexity and sophistication, and with the use of older poems, a sense of antiquity. He extended the scope of canu gyda'r tannau (literally, singing with the harp strings), and
The poet Ceiriog (John Ceiriog Hughes, 1832-87) a contemporary and friend of Idris Fychan, playing the harp in 1884.
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virtually restored its bardic status so that it could take its place, respectably, side by side with the poetry and with the bards of the flourishing eisteddfod. Until then the middle class, embroiled in the Methodist Revival, had considered singing, harping and dancing as sinful, and they did their best to convert the sinners, going to such lengths as converting some of the good old tunes into hymn-tunes while trying to suppress the original songs and dances. Idris Fychan, writing of his mother, says: Because my mother professed religion, and there was a prejudice against everyone who sang with the harp, she would not recite poetry or sing in public, but she would, for all that, hum songs during her work at home in Dolgellau. The eisteddfodau of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were most often held in taverns, but the bards were eventually coaxed out by the persistence of the Temperance Movement between 1840 and 1860. Thus, from the humble pastime of the peasantry, canu penillion was elevated to a new cultural status. To complete our brief glimpse of the Evan Williams Specimen, we come to the fifth songan amusing dialogue between a man and a woman; she spurns his advances very rudely. The title of the air is Malldod Dolgellau, but it is quite different from a tune bearing the same name in Edward Jones's Relicks. Nicholas Bennett though, in his Collection of 1896 has a variantor close relative. The air of the sixth song is Gwên Dandoó in common time:
Evan Williams, an accomplished poet, has, as he claims on his title page, attempted the words in English, but, alas, his English version does not have the same charm and musicality of the original Welsh: Gwyn ei fyd na fai cyn hawsed Imi nofio'r môr a'i weled; Minnau nofiwn rhwng dwy don I ysgafnhau'r drom galon hon.
(Oh could I swim with as much ease As I can view the raging seas; Between two waves I'd swim amain To ease my heavy heart from pain.
Awn ar un o'r brwyn i Enlli Ac ar un arall i Bwllheli, Ac oddi yno awn i'r Bermo Er mwyn y fun yr wy'n ei leicio.
On a rush I'd sail to Enlli [Bardsey] And on another to Pwllheli; And from there the Bermo[Barmouth] I'd see, For her sake that's dear to me.)
Evan Williams was the first poet to use blank verse in Welsh when he translated part of Milton's Paradise Lost in 1744. One wonders if these song lyrics were written by Williams himself, for only one of them have I been
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able to locate elsewhereand that in the fifteen-year-old Richard Morris's manuscript mentioned earlier. The poems of songs 1,2,4 and 8 match the titles exactly, and this is unexpected in penillion settings, where the tunes chosen have no bearing on the poems sungother than in mood and atmosphere. Song No. 7 is called Yr Hen Eos, (The Old Nightingale)the adjective probably refers to the melody and not the bird; there were, perhaps, newer airs called Nightingale. The recurrence of the high E flat in the key of F major gives the tune a modal flavour, a touch of the Mixolydian mode, except at the cadences, where the E natural, an octave lower, occurs each time. This mixed key with the flattened or natural seventh was heard quite often in old Welsh music. Only the first line of the words is given, beginning at the end of the fourth bar: Tydi'r eos geindlos, fwyn ('O slender, gentle nightingale), which implies that Williams was still writing new verses for this song. The final song is, I think, the most beautiful of them all; the air Heavy Heart was very popular and often referred to in ballad collections, but the tune had many variants, and a much longer version is found in Jones's Relicks: O mor drom fy nghalon i Pan feddylwy' mado â thi; O y confiad am bob gwynfyd, A mil o ber gusanau hefyd.
(Oh how heavy is my heart When from thee I think to part; Oh ye thoughts of all those blisses, And ye thousand sweetest kisses.)
We have no idea why the project to publish the full volume of thirty-one songs in 1745 did not materialize. It has been suggested that John Parry and Evan Williams may have had disagreementsthat Parry, for instance, may have disapproved of Williams's editing of the 1742 edition. But if that were so, I am sure the gossip of such magnitude would not have been missed by the omniscient Lewis Morris and his brothers, and the affair would have been commented upon in their numerous letters. It may have been a simple lack of money and subscribers, yet one cannot but express regret that we have been deprived of what might have been a unique collection of songs; no Welsh song book, complete with words, was to appear until 1844 when Maria Jane Williams brought out her Ancient National Aris of Gwent and Morganwg, and a year later, leuan Ddu published Y Caniedydd Cymreig with over a hundred traditional melodies, though, instead of using the traditional words, as Maria Jane Williams did, he very cleverly wrote new lyrics for all the songs, thus depriving us of a whole legacy of folk poetry! In his Preface, Ieuan Ddu suggests that the words for many of the songs have disappeared:
In a number of instances the old lyrics of the principality would have been inserted with the tunes to which they have been adapted, were it not that the trouble and expense of hunting for the best would have proved far more burdensome than the writing of original ones;
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Evan Williams's manuscript of Y Calon Drom from the unpublished Specimen of Part II of Antient British Music. but it is too true, that by far the greater number of our best harp tunes were never called for by vocalists, because the want of suitable words had virtually proved their death; and it may be said that they are now being resuscitated, after being for many years, no one knows how many, dead to all intents and purposes, excepting when struck by a Northwalian harper to a penillion singer. Thus we note that by 1845 there was complete isolation of the penillion singer from other vocalists, whereas a hundred years earlier, any singer might have sung Evan Williams's songs.
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Y Galon Drom (Heavy Heart)
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Harpists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries What were the activities of an eighteenth-century harpist like John Parry? In spite of his blindness he managed to travel around the country with his harp. He would have played in the houses of the aristocracy in London and elsewhere. He took part in the meetings and celebrations of the Cymmrodorion Society in Londonin 1767 he sang a set of verses in praise of the Prince of Wales written by the Revd William Lloyd, rector of Cowden in Kent. Evan Williams was also active in the same circles, and Richard Morris in 1761 recommended him to the Cymmrodorion as a possible secretary. Williams had edited twenty-four psalm-tunes (eight of them were his own compositions) for inclusion in the Prayer Book which was bound with Richard Morris's SPCK Bible; these were the first hymntunes by a Welshman to be published. He played his harp to accompany the singing in a small church in London, as well as the organ, and he gave lessons on the harp. Because of his special distinction John Parry enjoyed the patronage of Sir Watcyn Williams Wynn of Wynnstay, Rhiwabon, who supplied him with a home on the estate and possibly in London also. Parry's wife lived and travelled with him, and his son, William (c.1742-91) was born in London. William became a successful painter; he studied in Italy for several years and exhibited at the Royal Academy. John Parry spent the last few years of his life in the tranquillity of Wynnstay, where he died in 1782. It is said that Parry's harp had a beautiful sound; we do not know where his early harps were made, but his final triple was made by John Richards of Llanrwst (1711-89), whose harps were justly admired for their tone and quality. Unfortunately, John Parry's harp was destroyed by the disastrous fire at Wynnstay during the nineteenth century, when so many valuable, irreplaceable Welsh manuscripts also perished. I, myself, have one of these triple harps by John Richards, but, alas, the sound-board is now too old and brittle to withstand any tension from the strings. When I used it for a short while some years ago it displayed a beautifully clear, delicate texture, quite different from the louder triples of the nineteenth century, when the makers began to emulate continental harps with new, stronger sound-boards. Carnhuanawc (Thomas Price) often advised the famous nineteenthcentury harp-maker in Cardiff, Basset Jones, and he would sometimes be very frank with himas in this letter of 1843:
It is very loud, but I do not like the tone at all. It is by no means sweet, but harsh and hollow. I think some of the wood must be too thin. It sounds the letter oo, as in the word too, with a very nasal twang, especially from the second octave down. You are of course aware that all harps sound some vowel; the North Wales harps sound
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the a with a snarling character; your best harps sound aw as in the word law. When Basset Jones presented a triple harp to the Prince of Wales in 1843, Carnhuanawc was consulted on the design and manufacture at all stages, and it was he who made the presentation at Buckingham Palace with two eminent harpers in attendance to play the harp, John Jones of Llanover and Thomas Griffiths, then of Tredegar. The party was honoured with the gratifying commendations of Her Majesty and of the Prince Consort, and the harpers subsequently received from their Sovereign liberal largess. Harps by John Richards and Basset Jones may be seen at the Welsh Folk Museum at St Fagans, near Cardiff. Though John Richards lived and worked in Llanrwst for much of his life, he spent his final years at Plas Glanbran, Carmarthenshire, at the home of the benefactor Sackville Gwynn (also a fine harpist), here he was able to continue his craft into his old age; it is said that he made twenty harps while living at Plas Glanbran. I have mentioned already, in passing, Edward Jones, who came to be known as Bardd y Brenin (King's Bard); he was born at Henblas, Llandderfel, near Bala, in 1752. He, also, was a fine harpist, but he is best known for his research into Welsh music and poetry, the results of which were published in Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards in 1784, and expanded upon in the second edition of 1794. There is a tradition that after he had won a contest against much older harpists when he was but twelve years old, he was brought to the attention of the gentry who encouraged him to seek a career in London. He was twenty-three when he eventually took this step. The harp was by now a fashionable instrument in London; the novelist Fanny Burney, daughter of a distinguished musician, Dr Charles Burney, describes in her diary how Edward Jones came to play for them in May 1775, soon after he arrived in London. Curiously, he played a new pedal harpa fine instrument of Merlin's construction: he plays with great neatness and delicacy. But his main interest was, undoubtedly, in publishing music, in searching for old melodies and poetry, and in his desire to give shape to a historical study of Welsh music. He was appointed harper to the Prince of Wales in 1788, and when the Prince became King, Jones came to be known as the King's Bard. Association with the court was highly considered during the eighteenth century, and of great significance to a struggling musician. As a harpist he did not make as strong an impression as John Parry; he, himself may have sensed this. Perhaps he was somewhat jealous of Parry's reputation for there is no reference to Parry in the Relicks of 1784just two years after Parry's death. In the 1794 edition, however, there are two brief references to him:
An epitaph intended for the late Blind Parry, the Harper, who died October 7th 1782:
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Gwel fedd, a diwedd ar dônsain peraidd Siôn Parri, Rhiwabon, Blaenor y Telynorion, Garai'r iaith, a geiriau'r Iôn. (See the tombno more the tones and the sweet sound of John Parry of Rhiwabon, foremost of all harpists, he loved our language and the word of the Lord.) A note on page 50 states: Mr. John Parry of Rhiwabon, who died about ten years ago, was harper to the late Sir Watcyn Williams Wynn and to his father. There was a musical contest on the harp between Blind Parry and Huw Siôn Prys of Llandderfel, and Foulk Jones, the Trumpeter, was appointed to be the judge, in which Parry proved victor. Parry and Evan Williams, the Harper, jointly published the first book of Welsh tunes; but the original melodies were very much mutilated The most distinguished performers of the present day on the Triple Harp, or Welsh Harp, are Thomas Jones, Esq., late of Richmond and native of Corwen, and Sackville Gwynn, Esq., of Glanbran. There may have been some idiosyncracies in Parry's Antient British Music of 1742, but Edward Jones did not realize that there might be several variants of traditional airs for the simple reason that they were transmitted orally from one generation of harpists to another. Though Edward Jones's volumes of music, poetry, and history suffer from the limitations of eighteenth-century scholarship, nevertheless, he bequeathed to posterity a treasury of Welsh harp music and an invaluable collection of the lyric stanzas which we call hen benillionfolk poetry, which might otherwise have disappeared. (For a full account of his life and work see the fine book in Welsh by Tecwyn Ellis published by the University of Wales Press in 1957.) Jones's arrangements of Welsh airs, and his variations upon them, continued to be published long after his death in 1824. The second John Parry, Bardd Alaw (17761851), a native of Denbigh, continued with publications of Welsh harp music; but his first collection of music in 1804 was for military band; then in 1807 came a set of Welsh airs for harp or piano, with flute and cello, and in 1809 appeared a volume of Welsh melodies with English words. In 1839 he published The Welsh Harper, being a reprint of Jones's Bardic Remains, and a further volume in 1848, with many of his own melodies as well. He prefaced the work with an essay on the Antiquity of Welsh Music which is extremely unreliable. It has a specimen of Robert ap Huw's music written in a weird, supposedly bardic alphabet which bears no resemblance to the original. John Parry knew Edward Jones well and was deputed by the Royal Society of Musicians to take the sick harpist a gift of money only a few days
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before he died: I told him the purport of my visit, but he did not pay much attention to me, and only asked with much fervency whether I knew Mwynen Môn, a most beautiful pathetic Welsh air He took his harp, and with a trembling hand struck the deep sorrows of his Lyre. After his death Parry surveyed his library with a view to auction; this eventually realized £500, for Jones had valuable old books. His six-stringed crwth was sold for twelve shillings, a pibgorn for twelve shillings also, an ancient Welsh harp for six shillings, and a superior French pedal harp by Holtzman for £10. Parry, Bardd Alaw, settled in London in 1807 and earned his living initially as a wood-wind player, and later as a composer and arranger. He was invited to arrange the popular concerts at Vauxhall Gardens for many years, and he wrote music for plays which were performed at Drury Lane. Most of his music has been forgotten, though some still survives in the penillion repertoire, notably Cadair Idris, Llanofer, and Cainc y Datgeiniaidharp airs to which penillion singers set their poems. His son, John Orlando Parry (1810-79) was a gifted harpist, and he played the new, more popular pedal harp. He was taught by the famous virtuoso Bochsa (remembered for his harp tutor and studiesand also for many indiscretions which are not within the scope of this book: see New Grove Vol.1 p.831), but John Orlando was also a fine singer and pianist. Soon he became famous as a concert entertainer, and on one concert tour in 1840/41 he travelled around Britain with the eminent composer and pianist Franz Liszt. He wrote accounts of his journeys in diaries and kept sketch books, some of which are at the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff. (See Transactions of the Cymmrodorion Society 1938: Diaries of John Orlando ParryI.J. Williams.) In this short study of the harp it is natural that I have dwelt on harpists who left their mark on posterity with their publications as well as with their playing. But alongside these musicians were scores of harpists who sustained the old traditions in Wales from generation to generation. While London attracted the ambitious (perhaps, still does today), there were many fine players who were patronized by Welsh estates. Sometimes they would have duties to their masters other than harping, for few manor houses could afford to have a man standing by just waiting to play. Then there would be the semi-professionalsmen who lived by their day-to-day work as cobblers, farmers; and, of course, there were the gypsies. The most famous gypsy family in Wales has been the Wood family, beginning with Abraham Wood (c.16991799), so famous, in fact, that almost any gypsy was referred to as one of Abram Wood's family. The old man himself was a fiddle player, but several harpists emerged from this tribe. Between John Abraham Wood (c.17421818) and Edward Wood (18361908) there were up to twenty harpists among them. Jeremiah Wood (c.17781867), was domestic harper at Plas Gogerddan for fifty-one years and was known as
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John Roberts, Telynor Cymru (1816-94), whose mother was a member of the famous Wood family. Jerri Bach Gogerddan. Another, John Wood Jones (1800-44), who was harper to Plas Glanbran and to the Llanofer family, was taught by Richard Roberts of Caernrfon (17691855) who in turn was taught by the blind Wil Penmorfa, a pupil of Blind John Parry. It has been claimed with some justification that many of these harpers were after the school of John Parry,
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The Roberts family of harpists (John Roberts and his sons) playing before Queen Victoria at Palé Hall, Llandderfel, August, 1889. and this style and technique from the eighteenth century has spanned over two hundred years with the Woods and, it has been suggested, through to the twentieth century with the playing of Nansi Richards, Telynores Maldwyn, though she, herself, was not taught by any of the Wood family. For a fascinating account of some of the Welsh gypsies read Eldra and A.O.H. Jarman's delightful book in Welsh Y Sipsiwn Cymreig (University of Wales Press, 1979; or in translation as The Welsh Gypsies: Children of Abram Wood, 1991). Whereas the eisteddfodau of the late eighteenth century were literary occasions ordained to rekindle the flame of the ancient Welsh metres in cynghanedd, by the 1820s the eisteddfodau included competitions for harpists. It appears that the competitive spirit was intense, and contestants would travel great distances with their harps strung on their backsthe triples, with no mechanics, were very much lighter than modern pedal harps. Winning the silver harp would add immensely to a harpist's status and authority; the test piece was always a Welsh air with variations of the competitor's choice. I have a manuscript book of one of these harpists,
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William Hughes, born at Llansanffraid-ym-Mechain, near Welshpool, in 1798. In this 150-page book he has copied music from 1818 until 1860. Much of the music came from Blind Parry's publications, with pieces by Corelli, Vivaldi, and Handel. Other music he copied from other players; harpists were prepared to share their manuscripts with their colleagues. It is interesting to read the annotations in the margins; from these one can create a biography of the harperthough some of the notes make sad reading: William Hughes, harper, lived at Glanyrafon in the year 1814 as servant for seven years with Mr.Lawton Parry's family. Mrs. Parry died in Liverpool in 1818, and Lawton Parry in 1819 at his own residence. William Hughes, Pen Cerdd Dant, [Chief Harper] Eisteddfod Caernarfon 1821. Pupils: Thos. Ellis, Richard Morris, Arthur Blayney, John Humphreys, Thos. Edwards, Joseph Green, Henry Green. [Page 48]: Rousseau's Dream copied by Arthur Blayney 1830. David Hughes, harper [autographhis son]. Edward Hughes, harper. Eos Maldwyn [autograph]. [Later on:] died Dec. 3rd 1851. Buried at Low Hill Cemetry, Liverpool, the best of harpists, he died of consumption after a long illness. Much regretted by his friends and relatives. [Earlier entries by Edward Hughes:] Edw. Hughes had a very sore throat Aug.27th 1845. Edw. Hughes won the Prize Harp, Abergavenny 1848. Mary, wife of Wm. Hughes died on Dec.25th 1852 aged 54. Owen Hughes, harpist, died April 30th 1859 aged 26. Y Bardd yn ei Awen: This air gained the Silver Harp for Wm. Hughes at Eisteddfod Caernarvon 1821. Pen Rhaw: this air was played at Welshpool Eisteddfod by Wm.Hughes 1825. Merch Megan: this tune won the Siver Harp at Welshpool Eisteddfod 1824 for Henry Humphreys. Bag o Broom: copied by H. Humphreys 1826. William Hughes died in Liverpool about 1866, but I also have another music-book which he must have acquired from Edward Jones, harper to the Earl of Shrewsbury at Alton Towers in Staffordshire. This, again, contains much of Blind Parry's music, including the four sonatas of 1760. It is puzzling, though, that this Edward Jones, a native of Llangollen, and winner of the 1828 Eisteddfod at Denbigh, was, according to all accounts, blind: after a fair trial of skill, Edward Jones the blind harper was declared victor and was invested with the medal by Lady Mostyn. But how could he possibly have read that manuscript? Other harpers were employed by inns and hotels to play music. There are many diaries and journals which refer to them, though Felix Mendel
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ssohn, the great composer, during a tour of Wales found them dull and unmusical. On the other hand, The Hon. John Byng, later Viscount Torrington, was enthusiastic about the harpers; he writes in his Torrington Diaries of a tour of North Wales in 1783: [Vol.1 p. 142] Dolgelley. A messenger was despatched, at our return, for a Welsh harper who played to us during supper and the following hours many delightful tunesSir Watkin's Delight, Conceit of Lady Owen, Sweet Richard, Moarvar Rhudlan, The Dimples, Davy of Garry Gwynn etc.. [p.145] Bala. Our boatman added that harping and dancing were decreasing in Wales by the interdiction of the Methodists who overrun the country. The harper of the town attended (by command) our return, and was very rapid and enlivening; and tho' his harp was not so good as that of yesterday, we thought that he had much more execution; his company was very agreeable until eleven o'clock. [p.147] Dolgelley. The Welsh harper attended, and tho' his harp was better we preferr'd the performance of the Bala harper as fuller of execution; one reason of his duller execution was the fatigue of the preceding fair. [p.161] Caernarvon. In the clean suburbs of Caernarvon we arriv'd at our inn, The Boota good house, our evening was spent reading and listening to the best harper we have yet met withby name Erasmus This is an instrument which I always admired, but now, on its native ground (connected with the ideas of former hospitality and antient minstrelsy) it becomes quite enthusiastic; and I pity my grandchildren who will only hear its merits and fame in their grandfather's and other pages; wishing in vain for that retrospective delight, which I am now enjoying. With the same passion am I now calling on him to repeat the tunes of the greatest antiquity [p. 168] Conway. No sooner had we dismounted and I had gone to the stable than Mr. P. found out the blind harper of the town (a harper to be compleat shou'd be blind) to whom we gave preference of any we had met with. The most outstanding harpist that Wales produced during the nineteenth century was John Thomas (18261913) who took upon himself the bardic title of Pencerdd Gwalia. He was born at Bridgend in South Wales, and at the age of twelve won the prize of a triple harp at the Abergavenny Eisteddfod in 1838. Lady Lovelace, daughter of the poet Byron, encouraged him and enabled him to study at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Whereas he began as a traditional Welsh player, with the harp on his left shoulder and his left hand playing the treble, he was forced to change to the conventional European style when he came to study under J.B. Chatterton for six years. He toured Europe as concert harpist during the winters
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of 1851-60, and played in France, Germany, Austria, Italy and Russia; some of his journeys are recollected in harp solos, as in Tyrolienne, a Mazurka, and in a harp and piano duo: Souvenir du Nord, based on Russian melodies. He was a prolific composer and arranger, but it has to be conceded that he suffered from a want of self-criticism which was typical of the nineteenth century, when mawkish and pompous poems and sentimental melodies poured forth from the pens of poets and composers alike to satisfy the feeble taste of the Victorians. His compositions include a harp concerto, a symphony, several overtures, quartets and operas which were written while he was still a student, but now he is remembered for his arrangements of Welsh airs for the harp. There were also pieces for violin and harp, several duets for harp and piano, and transcriptions for harp of twelve Schubert songs. Because his music is so pedestrian and predictable one cannot include it in a serious recital, unless one offers it, perhaps apologetically, as an example of its age. Thomas became Professor of the harp at the Royal Academy of Music, Royal College of Music and the Guildhall, and in 1871 he was appointed Harpist to Queen Victoria. He was conductor of the London Welsh Choral Union and gave many concerts of Welsh music, including his own oratorios Llewelyn and Bride of Neath Valley. His career overshadowed the activities of the Welsh harp-fraternity, whose outlets were the eisteddfodau and the inns. Surprisingly, his harp variations and arrangements manage to survive even today, though mostly in performances by charming harpists on television. It might be expected that a harpist of John Thomas's calibre would have stimulated harp compositions by his contemporaries, but his constant dedication of his own music to ladies of nobility suggest that he enjoyed the flaccid company of high society rather than the severe workshops of serious composers. The twentieth century John Thomas was succeeded at the London music colleges by his pupil, Gwendolen Mason, another Welsh harpist. She described to me (she was my professor for three years at the RAM) how she gave performances of Maurice Ravel's Introduction and Allegro under the composer's own direction during the 1920s in recording and also in concerts. This is, of course, the ravishing piece for harp solo accompanied by (Ravel's own description) flute, clarinet, and string quartet. It might be described as a miniature harp concerto, and it contains a most beautiful cadenza which displays magically so many aspects of the harp in such a brief space of time, with florid arpeggios, wide, vigorous chords, and delicate harmonics enfolded in shimmering glissandi. The work was intended as a display piece for the harp for it was commissioned by the French harp-makers, Erard;
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Ravel certainly came up to expectations, for he uses every string of the harp, fully utilizes the pedals, and he celebrates the unique qualities of the instrument. The reader must now allow the author some indulgence as he writes of people that he knew and who may have influenced his musical life; it would be regrettable not to relate experiences which might be of interest to others. Gwendolen Mason, who was warm and generous, taught, with great authority, many generations of Welsh harpists until she retired in 1959, and often adjudicated at the National Eisteddfod. She gave me encouragemnt when I competed at the National Eisteddfod at Denbigh in 1939 (when I was eleven) and at Bangor in 1943 (when I was fifteen)both times playing music by John Thomas! Her stock of students was constantly replenished by the many harp teachers in Wales. I remember with affection, especially, my own teacher, Alwena Roberts, who devoted her whole life to teaching, from 1930 until her death in 1981. She undertook the fatiguing journeys by train and bus the whole length and breadth of north and mid-Wales, even throughout the difficult days of the Second World War, in order to discharge her weekly obligations to her students. She was an extremely dedicated teacher. She conveyed her fine musicianship and style to her pupils, and this was immediately apparent when she sent on her students to study at the Royal Academy of Music. I recall with some embarrassment an occasion when I was adjudicating at the National Eisteddfod over forty years ago; she was shepherding and aiding six contestants at the preliminary audition; I felt that only one contestant had mastered the Piece in G by J.S. Bach and I therefore placed her, only, on stage in the final. I gathered after the result that she was Alwena Roberts's pupil, while the other five were from other teachers. There is hardly any need to add that I caused great agitation, aggravation and furybut I had assumed, quite innocently (having seen no other harp teacher at the prelims), that they were all her pupils! Alwena Roberts gave of her time to that most onerous undertaking, the annual planning and programming of the test pieces for the harp competitions at the National Eisteddfod. She was reserved, genteel, and of a somewhat maidenly and nervous disposition, intensely religious, and always kind and considerate. In 1960 she offered to sell me her favourite harp, an American Lyon & Healy 15 which she had bought, new, in 1927; I still use it occasionally, for it is more portable and convenient than other heavier harps. But she was no mean player herself; as a schoolboy I was always impressed by the felicity of her technique and her clean playing. Zabel's Marguerite at the Spinning WheelY Droell to uswas one of her most successful concert pieces. She took part in the first performance in 1926/7 of Stafell Gynddylan (The Hall of Cynddylan) by David Vaughan Thomas (18731934)settings of some of the ancient, obscure, Llywarch Hen poems from the ninth century for baritone, violin, cello and harp. He was the first serious
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The harpist Alwena Roberts, a dedicated teacher from the 1930s until her death in 1981. composer to set the complex metres of Welsh poetry; the harp also featured prominently in his Saith o Ganeuon (Seven Songs) for high voice, harp and string orchestra (1922)again settings of poems in cynghanedd. I have fond recollections also of the blind Dafydd Roberts, Telynor Mawddwy (18751956), a native of Dinas Mawddwy, an isolated village high above Dolgellau, but notable for its cultured inhabitants. I knew him when he lived at Barmouth; he was often seen entertaining curious tourists on the promenade during the summer months. But he was an extremely cultivated musician who had produced Y Tant Aur in 1910, a collection of harp melodies and penillion settings at a time when penillion singing was at its lowest ebb and had almost disappeared from the land. Later he published Cainc y Delyn I & II; these publications helped countless young singers to
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discover the joys of singing penillion and were widely used in schools and colleges. He had become blind following an attack of measles when he was six years old, but his extra sensibilities due to his blindness never ceased to amaze his acquaintances; he had learnt to take pianos and organs apart and put them back again as well as tuning them. He would learn a poem off by heart on a third reading, and then set it to music. After winning prizes for penillion singing to his own triple-harp accompaniment at the Liverpool Eisteddfod in 1900 he was invited by the second Lady Llanover to reside at Llanover to study the harp with Mrs Gruffydd Richards, the resident harpist. The famous first Lady Llanover, was born Augusta Waddington (180296). When she married Benjamin Hall (after whom the clock Big Ben was named, for he was Commissioner for Works at the time it was built), two neighbouring estates were united, Llanover and Abercarn, just a few miles north of Newport. Lady Llanover won a prize at an eisteddfod at Cardiff in 1834 with an essay on the Welsh language; she took upon herself the title Gwenynen Gwent, and under the influence of Carnhuanawc, she showed great interest in all things Welsh and aided many Welsh enterprises in publishing, gathering manuscripts, and in resuscitating interest in Welsh costumes. She kept a Welsh household and employed domestic harpers who played triple harps which were made on the estate. Dafydd Roberts stayed longer than the usual two years, and travelled to Newport for organ lessons. He remained there as domestic harper for six years, married one of the household, and came back to Merioneth, to Barmouth, where he taught and made music; his settings set a new standard in the art of canu penillion and he pleaded for a more musical, less raucous, style than was often encountered in the penillion singers of his time. No history of this period would be complete without a reference to the Queen of the Harp, as she came to be known, the colourful Nansi RichardsTelynores Maldwyn (18881979). She was born on a farm at Pen-ybont-fawr at the foot of the Berwyn mountain and received her early harp instruction, from the age of twelve to seventeen, from Tom Lloyd, Telynor Ceiriog, at the Castle Inn at nearby Llangynog. Her autobiographical account, Cwpwrdd Nansi (Nansi's Cupboarda treasury of discursive recollections, typical of her fleet, capricious temperament), tells how, as a child, she listened and enjoyed the playing of the Wood gypsy family, some playing harps, others the violin; though she did not claim to have been taught by them, their strong, rhythmic playing would surely have influenced her greatly. Tom Lloyd, her teacher, made his own triple harpsthe last produced in Wales around the turn of the century. Nansi recounts that he lived for some years in Pennsylvania, USA, and won the prize at the Chicago World Fair for constructing and playing a harp; he returned to Wales with his gold medal and a gold watch. Nansi won the prize for playing the triple harp at Llangollen Eisteddfod in 1908 and again the
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Nansi Richards, Telynores Maldwyn (18881979). following two years, and for her outstanding achievement she was presented with an Erard Gothic pedal harp at the Powys Eisteddfod, which she played from then on. She was persuaded to study at the Guildhall School of Music in London, but with her free, independent mind, and, especially, when she was expected to play on the wrong side of the harp, this sort of discipline was unattractive, and after one year she took to the stage and played in the wellknown theatres and music-halls of Moss and Stoll for a short while before deciding that this was not for her, either, and she returned to the comparative peace and warmth of her native hearth at Pen-y-bont. But she needed to express herself musically, and soon she was on the move again, this time to America; while she was there, from 1923 to 1925, her harp was badly damaged more than once, and when it became unusable, Lyon and Healy, the famous American harp-makers, presented her with the gift of a new harp. On returning to England she was faced with paying import duty, and, eventually, she had to send the harp back to America. I remember her performances with her group, Côr Telyn Eryri (literally, the Harp Choir of Snowdonia), consisting of two harps and a party of, perhaps, ten young female singers. They entertained audiences all over Wales and beyond; I recall their trip to Ynys Enlli (Bardsey Island) in 1938, with the choir and two harps being ferried precariously in a small motorboat across the treacherous Bardsey Sound. As a small boy I was intrigued and impressed by the duet on one harp performed by Nansi and her colleague, Telynores Eryri, and also by the latter's impersonation of a singing tramp, complete with pipe which gave forth great clouds of smoke. During the war Nansi entertained all over the country under the umbrella
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of ENSA, and she travelled widely with her harp despite the perils of the air raids. Often, in large towns like Swansea, Bristol and Birmingham, they had to take cover in air-raid shelters, and she recalls playing in a large, secret, underground factory somewhere in the south of England. Nansi was a popular and much-loved figure in eisteddfodic circles, though she sometimes caused consternation among the arweinyddion (the comperes) for her delays as she tuned her harp. All this time she was playing the pedal harp which was more convenient than the more temperamental triple harp which had twice as many strings. It was only during the last years of her life that she returned to her first love, the triple harp, and she was encouraged by BBC programme producers from London, and later, the musicologist, Joan Rimmer, who found in her playing elements of harp technique that reflected the style of over two hundred years agoan archaic baroque mode of harp-playing that had survived in Wales. This coincided with the new interest shown in old instruments and in ancient performance techniques, and Nansi's playing became, as it were, a living legend. It is often remarked that she played the lower strings of the triple harp nearer the soundboard than is usual; this was necessary because, with the lighter stringing of the instrument (the strings would be thinner and less taught than modern harps), there would be wider vibration at the centre of the strings which, when played forte to fortissimo, could easily cause them to strike against each other and jar noisily. This hazard could be eliminated by plucking the strings nearer the sound-board, and the consequent tonequality would be altered to give, when it was desirable, a clearer, crystalline sound to the bass strings. During her last years Nansi often wrote to me long, sometimes rambling letters telling of her exploits, expressing her views on the harp, and observing on its history. As might be expected, she was inclined to romanticize the past and to invent new mythsa not uncommon Welsh traitand I would respond and pay my respects by calling upon her on journeys which took me past her home, the old farm at Pen-y-bont-fawr, before climbing up the Berwyn Pass. She would have been amazed to hear of the new double and triple harps being constructed in Britain, Europe and America as new players have taken up the old instruments once more to bring to life long-forgotten sounds from another age. The 1950s also saw a general awakening of interest in the harp in Wales with a new generation of composers writing for the instrument; David Wynne (1900-83) wrote his Welsh Song Cycle for tenor and harpa commission from the Festival of Britain, and it was first performed at St Fagan's near Cardiff in the summer of 1951. Here, at last, was a composer who could apply considerable technique and experience in his settings of five cywyddau and a group of englynion (Llys Ifor Hael); not only had he mastered the difficulties of setting Welsh metrical poetry, but his harp
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writing was original, virile and accomplished. He set a high standard for other composers to emulate. The Song Cycle was followed by Six Bagatelles 1951, Violin & Harp Sonata 1957, Prelude & Dance 1963, and Music for Harp 1966. Another outstanding landmark was the Harp Concerto by Alun Hoddinott (b.1929) which was first performed at the Cheltenham Festival in 1958, and a month later at a Promenade Concert at the Royal Albert Hall under Sir Malcolm Sargent. Here, again, there was originality in the harp writing, which successfully steered away from the cliches of the romantic salon harp. This was followed by a Harp Sonata in 1964, Suite for Harp (1967), Nocturnes & Cadenzas (1969), and Fantasy in 1970. William Mathias (b.1934) wrote the attractive Three Improvisations in 1958 while he was a postgraduate student at the Royal Academy of Music in London. In 1970 Llandaff Festival commissioned a Harp Concerto from him, and he produced a delightful work scored for solo harp, with a small orchestra of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, timpani, percussion, celeste and a small body of strings. The music of the first movement is lyrical, while Welsh emotions stir elegiacally in the slow movement, and a dance-like atmosphere prevails in the finale. Other harp works from William Mathias have followed: Harp Sonata (1974), the Zodiac Trio for flute, viola and harp (1975/6), a work for flute, harp and strings, and, after a visit to America, the Santa Fe Suite (1988) for solo harp. There are harp works also from the Welsh pens of Mansel Thomas, Arwel Hughes, Grace Williams, Ian Parrott, Mervyn Burtch, Gareth Walters, David Harries and Gareth Glyn and many other young composersthere has never been so much new music available for Welsh players. The society which promotes penillion singing and harp playing, Cymdeithas Cerdd Dant, has, over many years, stimulated young players to study the harp, especially with their scheme to lend harps to young playersthey have a stock of about thirty harps, and their annual competitive festival of singing and playing attracts more and more performers each year. The Urdd Eisteddfod, also, encourages scores of young people to compete in the harp competitions, and the standard of playing constantly improves. There have never been so many proficient harpists as there are now, who perpetuate ancient customs, perhaps as players performing for their own pleasure, others fulfilling their extremely valuable mission as teachers, some playing their traditional role in penillion singing, and still others who, as hardy professionals, disseminate harp music to a wide public, not only in Wales, but all over the world.
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Bibliography In English. Bromwich, Rachel, Dafydd ap Gwilym, Cardiff, 1974. Bullock-Davies, Constance, Menestrellorum Multitudo, Cardiff, 1978. Welsh Minstrels at the Court of Edward I and Edward II, Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion. Dillon/Chadwick, The Celtic Realms, London, 1967. Conran, Anthony, Penguin Book of Welsh Verse, 1967. Dart, Thurston, Robert ap Huw's MS Galpin Society Journal, XXI, 1968. Davies, J.H. (ed.), The Letters of Lewis, Richard, William and John Morris 1728/65 (1907-9). Ellis, Osian, Welsh Music: History &Fancy (Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1972/3. Griffiths, Ann & A. Schaefer Gwilym Puw's MS, Welsh Music IV/2, 1974/5. Jarman, Eldra & A.O.H., The Welsh Gypsies: Children of Abram Wood, Cardiff, 1991. Jenkins, R.T./H. Ramage, History of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, London, 1951. Journals of the Welsh Folk Song Society (invaluable for commentaries on collections of Welsh airs etc.; from 1909 onwards). Lewis, Saunders, A School of Welsh Augustans, Wrexham, 1924. Literary Remains of the Revd Thomas Price (Carnhuanawc), Llandovery, 1854. Pattison, Bruce, Music & Poetry of the English Renaissaance, London, 1948 &1970. Parry, Sir Thomas, The Oxford Book of Welsh Verse, 1962. Polin, Claire, The ap Huw Manuscript, Institute of Medieval Music Ltd. Henryville, Pennsylvania. 1982. Rimmer, Joan, The Irish Harp, Cork, 1969. Thomas, Gwyn, The Caerwys Eisteddfodau of 1523 & 1567, Cardiff, 1968. Travis, James, Miscellanea Musica Celtica, Institute of Medieval Music Ltd., Brooklyn, NY, 1968. Williams, J.E. Caerwyn, The Poets of the Welsh Princes, Cardiff, 1978.
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In Welsh Ashton, Glyn M., Adolygiad: Guide to Welsh Literature, Llên Cymru XIV, 1969. Bowen, D.J., Graddedigion Eisteddfod Caerwys, Llên Cymru 11/2, 1952. Gwaith Gruffudd Hiraethog, Caerdydd, 1990. Davies, Glenys, Noddwyr y Beird yn Meirion, Dolgellau, 1974. Ellis, Tecwyn, Edward Jones, Caerdydd, 1957. Evans, Euros Jones, Noddwyr y Beirdd yn Sir Benfro, Transactions Hon. Soc. Cymmrodorion 1972/3. Griffith, Robert, Llyfr Cerdd Dannau, Caernarfon, 1913. Hughes, A. Lloyd, Noddwyr y Beirdd yn Sir Feirionnydd, Llên Cymru X, 1969. Jarman, A.O.H., Telyn a Chrwth, Llên Cymru, 1961. Jarman, Eldra ac A.O.H., Y Sipsiwn Cymreig, Caerdydd, 1979. Johnston, D.R., Gwaith lolo Goch, Caerdydd, 1988. Jones, J. Gwynfor, Cerdd a Bonedd yng Nghymru, Cerddoriaeth Cymru Cyfrolau VI/9, VII/1 & 3 1981-3. Jones, T. Gwynn, Cerdd Dant Bulletin Board Celtic Studies 1/2, 1922. Lewis, Saunders, Sangiad, Tropus a Chywydd, Trivium, 1966 ac yn Meistri'r Canrifoedd gol. R.G. Gruffydd 1973. Parry, Sir Thomas, Gwaith Dafydd ap Gwilym, Caerdydd, 1952. Rees, Brinley, Dulliau'r Canu Rhydd 15001650, Caerdydd, 1952. Roberts, Enid, Marwnadau Telynorion Traf. Hanes Sir Ddinbych 1966 ac ail-gyhoeddwyd yn Cerdd a Chân, Dinbych, 1982. Wiliam Cynwal Trafodion Hanes Sir Ddinbych, 1963. Llys Ieuan Esgob Llanelwy Traf. Han. S. Ddinb. 1974. Siôn Tudur, Caerdydd, 1978, a Llên Cymru 1952. Rosser, Ann, Telyn a Thelynor, Amgueddfa Werin Cymru, 1981. Thomas, Gwyn, Eisteddfodau Caerwys, Caerdydd, 1968. Golwg ar y Sangiad yng Ngwaith D. ap Gwilym, Llên Cymru X 3/4, 1969. Wiliam, Dafydd Wyn, Barddoniaeth a Llawysgrifau Robert ap Huw, Allwedd y Tannau, 33/34 1974/5, a Dinbych 1975. Williams, G.J. & E.J. Jones, Gramadegau'r Penceirddiaid, Caerdydd, 1934. Williams, G.J. (gol. A. Lewis), Agweddau ar Hanes Dysg Gymraeg, Caerdydd, 1969. Williams, J.E. Caerwyn, Beirdd y Tywysogion, Llên Cymru XI 1/2, 1970. Williams, J. Lloyd, Y Tri Thelynor, Llundain, 1945.
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Index A angle-harps 1, 2 Anglo-Saxon literature, harps in 2 atkaneiaid 44 B Bardd Teulu 3 Blond, Nicholas le 6 Boru, King Brian 10 bow-shaped harps 1 Bragod gywair 13, 28, 31-2, 34 Brut y Tywysogion 11 Bwting (Bwtling), Rhys 11 C canu penillion 54-64, 79 Caniad Bach ar y Gogywair 39, 40 Caniad Marwnad Ifan ap y Gof 36-8 Caniad San Silin 41-3 Carnhuanawc (Thomas Price) 52, 65, 66 Ceirog (John Ceiriog Hughes) 60 Clymau Cytgerdd 18, 20-4, 26-7 Cras gywair 13, 16-18, 28-9, 31-2, 34 crwth 1-2 crychu y fawd 19 cywydd 7-8, 35, 44, 46 Cynan, Gruffudd ap 9, 10, 26 Cynwal, William 18, 31, 35, 46 Cynwrig 11
D datgeiniad 8, 44-8 Ddu, leuan 62 Delynor, Edward 27 Delynor, leuan 27, 46 Derricke, John 44, 45 Dwnn, Lewis 46 E. Edmwnd, Dafydd ab 11 Eisteddfod tradition 10, 11, 47, 70 English court, harp in 4-6 English popular ballads, influence of 15-16 Evans, Charles 49-51 Evans, David 52 Evans (alias Williams), Lewis 49 F Foelas crwth 4 frame-harps 2, 3-6 G Gadael Tir 55-8 geige 6 Gellan 10 Giraldus Cambrensis 44 Goch, lolo 7, 18 Gogywair 13, 28-9, 32, 34 Griffith, Harry ap 13 Griffiths, Thomas, of Tredegar 66 Gruffudd, Lord Rhys ap 11 Guidonian pitch 13 Gwilym, Dafydd ap 7-8 Gwynn, Sackville 66, 67 H
Handel: Harp Concerto 52-4 Harry, George Owen, Victor of Cemais 8 Heilin (Peilin) 48 Hingston, John 49 Hiraethog, Gruffudd 25 Hoddinott, Alun 79 Hughes, William 71 Humphreys, Edward 51 Humphreys, Henry 51 Humphreys, Humphrey 51 Huw, Robert ap 6 manuscript 11-43 Clymau Cytgerdd 18, 20-4, 26-7 Hywel Dda 3, 4 Hywel Llwyd, Robert ap 46 I Ireland, harps in 6-11 Isgywair 13, 31-2, 34 J Jones, Basset 65-6 Jones, Edward (Bardd y Brenin) 66, 67 Jones, Edward (Llangollen) 71 Jones, John (Gellilyfdy) 28, 29 Jones, John (Llanover) 66 Jones, Thomas 53 K kinor 1 L. Lawes, William 48 Lleddf gywair 13, 28, 31, 34 Lloyd, Tom (Telynor Ceiriog) 76
Llwyd, Dafydd 27 Llwyd, Hywel (Hwlcyn) 28 Llwyd, Robert 28 Llyn, William 32 lyre 1 M MacDermott, Cormack 48-9 Machno, Huw 12, 31 Maenan, Dafydd 18, 35 Mason, Gwendolen 73-4 Mathias, William 79 Mersenne, Marin 13, 50 More, William 48 Morris, Edward 59 Morris, Huw 59 Morris, Lewis 12, 14, 16, 53, 58-9 Morris, Richard 14, 62, 65 Mostyn, Richard 25 Mostyn silver harp 12-13 O Owen, William 55 P Parry, Blind John 52-4, 65, 66-7 Parry, John (Bardd Alaw) 59, 67-8 Parry, John Orlando 68 Parry, William 65 pencerdd 3, 45 Penllyn, Ieuan 27 Penllyn, William 12, 19, 27 Penmon, Lewis 48 Penmorfa, Wil 69 Pibydd, Dic (Dick the Piper) 48
Pierse, Nicholas Dall 7 Powell, David 10, 11, 35, 44 Powell, William 52 Prys, Dr Elis 35 Prys, Huw Sin 67 Prys, Sir John 35 Puw, Gwilym 28, 29 R Raff, Edward ap 35 Rhys, Siôn ap 27 Richards, John (Llanrwst) 65, 66 Richards, Nansi (Telynores Maldwyn) 70, 76-8 Roberts, Alwena 74-5 Roberts, Dafydd (Telynor Mawddwy) 75-6 Roberts, John (Telynor Cymru) 69, 70 Roberts, Richard (Caernarfon) 69 rote 2 S Salbri, Siôn (John Salusbury) 46 sangiad 8, 18 scordatura 18 Siamas, Elis Siôn 50 Smith, Thomas 44 Squire, Philip 48, 49 T Taliesin Romances 3 technique of playing 4-11, 19 Thomas, John 72-3 Trevor, Bishop Ieuan 8 triple harp 50-2 Tudor, Siôn 46 tuning 18, 29, 31
V. vielle 6 Fychan, Idris 60-1 W Waddington, Augusta 76 Wiliems, Sir Thomas 28 Williams, Evan 54-6, 61, 65, 67 Williams, Lewis 49 Williams, Maria Jane 62 Wood, Abraham and family 68-70 Wynne, David 78-9 Y Y Galon Drom 62-4 Z Zampieri, Domenico 50, 51
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