Welsh Folk Music

The earliest glimpse we have of traditional Welsh music is in the writings of churchman, Giraldus Cambrensis (ca. 1146-ca. 1223). "They do not sing in unison like other nations," wrote Cambrensis in The Topography of Ireland, "but in many voices and in many rhythms and intervals. In a company of singers, as is usual with this nation, there are as many tunes and varieties of voice as there are heads, all uniting finally in harmonious concord." The choral tradition remains powerful in Wales, and there are doubtless many Welsh choirmasters who would recognize this picture of resolute individuality, immense variety, and ultimate harmony. The Welsh are a musical people. The mountains and valleys of Wales have produced some of the finest voices ever to grace the concert platform and the operatic stage. The Welsh are also a people with a strong sense of tradition and national identity, which expresses itself both in the Welsh language-a form of Gaelic which is still spoken all over Wales-and in a rich heritage of folk music and song.

In the courts of medieval English and Celtic kings and noblemen, musicians and poets were employed not only to entertain, but also to sing the praises of their lords. In Wales, these privileged artists were called bards. Bardic offerings were characteristically declamatory and were often extravagantly flattering both to the patron and to the artist himself. Gildas, a sixth century monk, describes bards "bawling their own praises" and neglecting to celebrate God in their songs. Bardic songs were performed to the accompaniment of the harp: The harp (telyn) was the bard's symbol of office, and the chief bard was traditionally presented with a harp when he was appointed. At gatherings of Welsh noblemen, bards represented their lordly patrons in competitions of poetry and song. These contests were called eisteddfods.

Instruments

The telyn, the crwth, and the pibau are the leading instruments of ancient Welsh musical tradition. Unfortunately, no native Welsh harp survives from before about 1700, and the instrument that is usually referred to as the "Welsh harp" is a 95-string triple harp-so called because its strings are arranged in three rows. This instrument was invented in Italy in the seventeenth century and was adopted by the Welsh in preference to the less versatile 30-string Renaissance harps, which had been in use for the preceding 200 or 300 hundred years. By the end of the eighteenth century, the triple harp was the national instrument of Wales. The conventional pedal harp replaced it for a time, but the resurgence of interest in Welsh folk music that began in the 1950s has been accompanied by an attention to authenticity, and the triple harp has once more become the most characteristic sound in Welsh traditional music, both instrumental and vocal.

The crwth, a rectangular lyre, usually has six strings and a flat bridge, which enables the player to make chords. Three of the six strings are drone strings, which are plucked with the left hand while the right hand uses the bow. In the eighteenth century, the crwth was almost discarded in favor of the more adaptable fiddle, which took over and enlarged the crwth's repertory. Many of the old tunes were kept alive by traveling gypsy fiddlers, and Welsh traditional fiddle music still plays an indispensable role in dances, fairs, and family celebrations. Over the past several decades, the authentic Welsh crwth, like the harp, has enjoyed a revival, reclaiming much of the repertory of songs and melodies that the fiddle had taken over.

The pibau, or Welsh bagpipes, did not have the same status as the telyn or the crwth since it did not accompany bardic declamation. The pibau existed in two forms. The smaller pibau had a single chanter (which carries the melody-as distinct from the drones, which provide a continuous accompaniment), a small bag, and only two or three drones, while a larger and more complex pibau had double, parallel chanters. The double chanter is usually associated with instruments from the Middle East and North Africa (the bagless zammara, for example); this bagpipe may have been a Welsh adaptation of an instrument introduced to Wales by gypsies of middle- or far-eastern origin who migrated from Spain in late medieval times. The Welsh cornicyll, a form of shawm (a woodwind instrument), may also have middle-eastern roots. The pibau and the cornicyll are loud instruments, ideal for dance music, and were often played in ensembles that included harps, along with crwths or fiddles.

Scholarly Interest in Welsh Culture

The bardic tradition fell into decay in the late Middle Ages as Wales was under increasing English domination. When Henry Tudor, a Welsh nobleman, became King Henry VII of England in 1485, most of the remaining bards left for London to seek their fortunes. But in the late eighteenth century, antiquarians began to take a scholarly and romantic interest in Welsh traditional culture, and eisteddfods were revived as celebrations of Welsh poetry, music, and culture. In the absence of written records, scores, and real research, these eager antiquarians invented fanciful recreations of ancient Welsh culture, conjuring myth and magic out of the mists of imagined, rather than recorded, history. Judges dressed as Celtic druids in flowing robes, and poets, singers, and musicians sought to find material appropriate to this romantic solemnity.

The revival of the eisteddfod led to fruitful research in Wales itself. Edward Williams (1747-1826), known as Iolo Morganwg, was the earliest collector of authentic Welsh folk songs, and his Ancient National Airs of Gwent and Morganwg, published posthumously in 1844, revealed a rich living tradition of wassailing songs, ballads, dance tunes, carols, lullabies, and nursery songs. Williams's pioneering work formed the basis for a number of collections published through the nineteenth century. Maria Jane Williams (1795-1873) was awarded the eisteddfod prize in 1844 for her 43 songs in the Welsh language, which she set to harp and piano accompaniment. The next year, John Thomas (1795-1871), a second prizewinner, published The Cambrian Minstrel, which contained 148 unaccompanied pieces, including folk ballads and other songs collected during his travels in rural Wales, harp tunes, and many of his own compositions. Thus the eisteddfod movement, begun almost as a flight of romantic fancy, was responsible for research that would eventually reveal a native folk tradition and accumulate a body of music and song that in relation to Wales is as important as the Child Ballads are to the Anglo-Celtic-American tradition. Wales continued to become more culturally self-aware, with the establishment of great institutions like the University of Wales, the National Library, and the National Museum, and in 1908 the Welsh Folk-Song Society was established. Both the eisteddfod and the Journal of the Welsh Folk-Song Society thrive to this day.

Repertoire

Though most Welsh folk music is in the eight-note scale, the Celtic pentatonic modes that we associate with Scotland, Ireland, and Brittany survive in songs like "Suo-gaìn." The religious folk tradition survives in wassail songs like "Hyd Yma Bu'n Cerdded"-these were sung outside people's doors in exchange for food and drink at Christmas and other festivals in the Church calendar, and in characteristically plaintive carols like "Tua Bethlem Dref." Pre-Christian pagan elements survive in pentatonic songs like "Canu Cwnsela," which is connected with the ancient ritual of Mari Lwyd ("Grey Mare"), a south Welsh Yuletide custom in which a party of singers would process from door to door carrying a horse's skull on the end of a pole. A singer, hidden under a draped sheet, would work the horse's jaw, making it look as if it, too, were joining in the song. A harp player or fiddler would usually accompany the party, and a competition of extempore singing would often be part of the ensuing wasailing. The bardic tradition survives in the declamatory mode of songs like "Can'r Pwnc" and many others: These songs open with the singer chanting on a single note, usually the fifth note of the diatonic scale. Ancient plowing customs survive in a rich tradition of oxen songs, which were sung in the Vale of Glamorgan until the end of the nineteenth century. Plowing was the work of two people, one to guide the plow and the other to walk backward facing the oxen, holding a goad and singing all day "to keep the oxen in good heart." These songs are identified by the "call" to the oxen at the end of each verse.

The Ballad

By far the richest seam in Welsh folk song is the ballad. Many narrative and heroic ballads still exist, like "Gelert Ci Llywelyn" ("Gelert and Llywelyn") and "Rhyvelgyrch Cadpen Morgan" ("Forth to the Battle"), but love ballads dominate the folk repertory. Welsh love ballads tend to be songs of praise or farewell, and some, like "Hob Y Deri Dando," ("The Pig under the Oaks") are bawdy. Many love songs are still coming to light after being repressed by the stern Welsh Methodist Church for nearly two centuries. All these ballads-heroic, amatory, historic, and nationalistic-are marked by a characteristic "Welshness." This indefinable but unmistakable quality is at once sentimental and tough, humorous and stolid, and fiercely independent and indomitably proud of its homeland and heritage.