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33 results

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  • Chapter 15 - Singing Welshness

  • Edited by Trevor Herbert, Royal College of Music, London, Martin V. Clarke, The Open University, Milton Keynes, Helen Barlow, The Open University, Milton Keynes
  • Book:
    A History of Welsh Music
    Published online:
    08 September 2022
    Print publication:
    29 September 2022, pp 332-354

  • Summary

    The chapter examines the relationships between music, sport and Welsh identity. Focusing on the national rugby union and football teams, it explores the ways in which performances of ‘Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau’ by players and supporters have contributed to a cohesive sense of national identity. Examples range from its first recorded use prior to the rugby team’s famous victory over the New Zealand All Blacks in 1905 to its part in the Football Association of Wales’s efforts to galvanise supporters during the team’s successful Euro 2016 campaign. It also considers the adoption of popular hymns such as ‘Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah’ and ‘Calon Lân’ by supporters, investigating the extent to which affiliation to the national team takes on a spiritual quality. Drawing on the contributions of popular Welsh artists such as Max Boyce, the chapter also assesses the self-referential nature of connections between musicality and sporting pride in corporate expressions of national identity. It considers the ways in which language, religious practice and social structures encouraged and maintained a culture of massed patriotic singing, and how this has been reimagined and perpetuated in the twenty-first century through a combination of institutional support, technological developments and the influence of social media.

  • Chapter 10 - Nonconformists and Their Music

  • Edited by Trevor Herbert, Royal College of Music, London, Martin V. Clarke, The Open University, Milton Keynes, Helen Barlow, The Open University, Milton Keynes
  • Book:
    A History of Welsh Music
    Published online:
    08 September 2022
    Print publication:
    29 September 2022, pp 218-242

  • Summary

    The centrality of congregational singing to nonconformist religious practice in Wales since the eighteenth century has afforded hymnody a significant place in scholarly and popular understandings not only of religion in Wales but also of the place of music in Welsh cultural life more broadly. This chapter examines the influence of both the musical practices and repertoire of Welsh nonconformity. Taking the Aber valley in south Wales as a case study, it explores how diverse influences such as industry, demographics, denominational affiliation and theology shaped the development of nonconformist hymnody from the eighteenth century onwards. It considers the extent to which chapels functioned as a focal point for communal activity, and the prominence of music within the activities that took place, especially the cymanfa ganu and revival meetings. In terms of repertoire, it assesses the musical characteristics of a body of tunes that emerged a century or more later than the period in which Welsh hymn writing flourished in the work of Williams Pantycelyn, Ann Griffiths and others. It considers how these tunes and the texts with which they have been paired have influenced perceptions of Welsh musicality and religious identity within and beyond Welsh nonconformity and beyond the borders of Wales.

A History of Welsh Music
  • Edited by Trevor Herbert, Martin V. Clarke, Helen Barlow
  • Published online:
    08 September 2022
    Print publication:
    29 September 2022
  • From early medieval bards to the bands of the 'Cool Cymru' era, this book looks at Welsh musical practices and traditions, the forces that have influenced and directed them, and the ways in which the idea of Wales as a 'musical nation' has been formed and embedded in popular consciousness in Wales and beyond. Beginning with early medieval descriptions of musical life in Wales, the book provides both an overarching study of Welsh music history and detailed consideration of the ideas, beliefs, practices and institutions that shaped it. Topics include the eisteddfod, the church and the chapel, the influence of the Welsh language and Welsh cultural traditions, the scholarship of the Celtic Revival and the folk song movement, the impacts of industrialization and digitization, and exposure to broader trends in popular culture, including commercial popular music and sport.

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