BEGINNINGS OF

WELSH MUSIC

Scholars are not clear when Welsh music, as a national music, began. There are references to music sung in Wales in the 6th C. writings of the monk Gildas when he criticized the Welsh Bards for singing court "praise-songs" instead of religious songs. This is also the earliest reference to Welsh Bards. The music described by Gildas was music of the court.

The first description of music of the common man appeares in in the writings of Giraldus Cambrensis in the 12 C. Gelardus also mentions ox driving songs, a type that was in use in Glamorgan until the end of the 19 C.

The earliest surviving collection of secular music is from the "Musica neu Beroriaeth" a manuscript compiled by the harper Robert ap Huw (1580-1665). These pieces, many of which may date from as early as the 13th C. are for a horse-hair or gut strung harp, played with the fingernails. It is most likely the earliest surviving example of European Harp music.

The earliest Welsh dance tunes that are marked as such, are found in a book entitled Playford's Dancing Master, and date from 1665 to 1718. There are a few others tunes found in a collection that scholars refer to as the London dance books. These, are the only ones prior to John Parry's collection of 1742. In comparison English dance music is traceable step by step, from the 13th century onward with examples of actual written notes.

WELSH MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS



In the Welsh laws of the 10th c. which have come down to us in 12th C. manuscripts, three instruments are mentioned as used in the courts, the harp, the crwth and the pibgorn.

The harp "telyn" is the best known of Welsh Musical instruments, although it is also to be found among the Scots and Irish, as well as the Anglo-Saxons. Wales, however retained it for a longer period, and probably today the harp is more frequently played there than elsewhere. Early Welsh harps were small and are mentioned as early as the 10th C. According to Welsh law the harp was one of the three indispensible possessions of a freeman. Accoeding to Marcuse, they were originally supplied with horsehair strings but gut was the rule by the 14th c. Double rowed chromatic harps were developed by the 16 c. throughout Europe. The triple harp, used now days by Welsh harpists and associated with Welsh harping did not make an appearance until the 17th C.

According to early laws certain kinds of harps were confined to learners, and one of these kinds was made of hardened leather or was a harp covered in leather.

The other musical instruments of Wales were much the same as those in use in England, Ireland, and Scotland.

There was, however, one exception, the CRWTH, a stringed instrument that started out being plucked and was later bowed. Sibyl Marcuse in her work, A Survey of Musical Instruments, puts the Crwth in the classification of post-Medieval Lyres. Its English name by 1310 was "Crouth", and "Crowd" by the 16th century. She cites the case of a John Hogan who was reprimanded in 1537 for "singing lewd ballads with a crowd or fyddyll". According to Marcuse, by the Middle Ages it was known as a "Chorus", its Latinized form. In the 12th C. Gerald of Wales (Girardus Cambrensis) wrote that the "Chorus" was in general use in Wales and Scotland. Aimeri de Peyrac says in the 14th C. that the "Chorus" had two pairs of strings tuned a fourth apart. Marcuse cites a seal dated 1316 belonging to a player, Roger Wade which shows "a bow beside a fingerboard lyre with straight sides, rounded top and bottom, two sound holes near the lower end and -one judges- four strings". Later two more strings seem to have been added for from the 11th C. on it is referred to as having 6 strings. One poem even mentions that 2 of the strings are "for the thumb." As Marcuse points out, the 2 extra strings seem to have been drones, off of the fingerboard, that the thumb could reach while bowing. After the 16th C. the instrument is no longer mentioned. It was "rediscovered" in the 18th C. when a few people in Wales were found who still played it. According to Marcuse, the few examples that have been preserved from the 18th C. "...have an oblong body with flat belly and back, straight sides, closed at the top. Handholes separated by a central fingerboard and 2 circular holes cut in the belly; two off-board strings have been added to the 4 bowed ones, all of which are secured by rear pegs in the top." By the 18th C. the Crwth was held almost like a violin, but that is considered to be

because of the violin's influence. Despite efforts to revive the Crwth it was extinct by the 19thc.

One that was still being played in the early 19th century was played with a bow and was described as being "harsh and disagreeable".

The rest of the Welsh instruments, so far as we know, were the PIBGORN or hornpipe, the pibgod or bagpipe, the bugle , and the tabret or tabor, a small drum

.

Pibgod by John Tose

Welsh musicians have, from early times, held musical meetings at which harpers and other performers from different parts of the country played in competitions. The modern survival of these meetings is the Eisteddfod an important feature of musical life in Wales today.

BRETON MUSIC