Wales is rightly happy with its singing heritage. Track, each spiritual and secular, is vastly essential to the Welsh tradition – not for nothing is it typically referred to as the Land of Track. Particularly, choral music is a necessary a part of the nation’s musical repertoire, with many Welsh choirs famed around the globe.
Listed below are a few of the best-known and best-loved conventional Welsh songs.
Greatest Welsh songs
‘We’ll Hold a Welcome (within the Hillsides)’
The music for this common music was composed in 1940 by Welsh songwriter and entertainer Mai Jones, whereas the phrases got here from lyricists Lyn Joshua and Jimmy Harper. Initially launched for the wartime BBC radio selection present Welsh Rarebit, the music has retained robust associations with Wales.
Initially broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme, Welsh Rarebit was geared toward Welsh individuals serving within the armed forces throughout World Battle II. We’ll Hold a Welcome was written because the closing music for every episode.
Welsh Rarebit was later transferred to the BBC Mild Programme, the place it grew to become the preferred present in 1949. We’ll Hold a Welcome quickly grew to become a well-liked postwar music: certainly, by the Fifties, the music was generally known as “Wales’ second nationwide anthem”.
The music bought its first and second recordings throughout 1949. Later, in 1956, the good Welsh singer, current and comic Harry Secombe additionally recorded a model.
‘Sosban Fach’ (‘Little Saucepan’)
A conventional Welsh folks music, Sosban Fach (or ‘Little Saucepan’) is a widely known and much-loved Welsh language music. A home vignette involving an overstretched housewife, a crying child and a bit of pan boiling over the hearth, the music has shut associations with the rugby union membership Llanelli RFC and, extra just lately, the Scarlets regional rugby aspect.
These hyperlinks happened by way of Llanelli’s tin plating trade: generations of saucepans and different kitchen utensils had been tin-plated within the city after which bought on to the British public. The city’s trade, and its most well-known music, are additionally remembered within the Scarlets’ official journal, Sosban.
Famend Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel recorded the music on his 2000 album We’ll Hold a Welcome.
‘Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau’ (‘Land of my Fathers’)
Sometimes called Wales’ unofficial nationwide anthem, this rousing ‘Land of my Fathers’ has a powerful household connection. The phrases had been written by the Pontypridd-based poet Evan James and set to a tune composed by his son, the composer and harpist James James.
The latter, who additionally discovered the time to run a public home, composed the piece initially as a dance tune. It was initially meant to be carried out in 6/8 time, however was slowed right down to a 3/4 tempo when it caught on as an anthem for singing by massive crowds.
We named ‘Land of my fathersw’ of the finest rugby songs ever
‘Ar Lan y Môr’ (‘Beside the Sea’)
This conventional Welsh folks music exists in a number of totally different varieties, with varied totally different lyrics. Throughout all variants, nonetheless, the tune stays the identical. So does the subject material: ‘Ar Lan y Môr’ is a love music, which additionally evokes the attractive Welsh countryside.
That is one other conventional Welsh music to function on Bryn Terfel’s album We’ll Hold a Welcome: it is also current on the debut album by Welsh mezzo-soprano Katherine Jenkins, 2004’s Première.
‘Males of Harlech’
This well-known music and army march is believed to be an outline of the seven-year siege of Harlech Fort in the course of the Wars of the Roses. The large Thirteenth-century citadel was being held by the Lancastrians towards the Yorkists and, below Constable Dafydd ap Ieuan, the garrison withstood the longest recognized siege in British historical past. Certainly, an alternate identify for the music is ‘By way of Seven Years’.
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There might also be connections with an earlier siege of Harlech when, in round 1408, Welsh chief Owain Glyndŵr resisted an assault by the long run King Henry V of England.
‘Males of Harlech‘ has featured in two well-known movies: the 1941 film How Inexperienced Was My Valley and Zulu, from 1964.
‘Dafydd y Garreg Wen’ (‘David of the White Rock’)
David Owen (1712-41), a harpist and composer from Caernarfonshire, is believed to have composed the tune to this haunting conventional Welsh music. Owen was recognized domestically as Dafydd y Garreg Wen (‘David of the White Rock’), after the identify of the farm the place he lived.
It’s believed that Owen, on his demise mattress on the age of simply 29, known as for his harp and composed the tune. The phrases had been added a century later by the poet John Ceiriog Hughes (1832-87).
‘Dafydd y Garreg Wen’ is one other Welsh music with a singular distinction in historical past. When, in 1923, the BBC made its first broadcast from Wales, singer Mostyn Thomas opened the programme – with a rendition of ‘David of the White Rock’. The music thus grew to become the very first Welsh-language music to play on the airwaves.
Performances of the music are sometimes accompanied by a harp – an essential instrument in Wales’ musical heritage.
‘My little Welsh Residence’
‘I’m dreaming of the mountains of my dwelling’: so start the lyrics to this nostalgic folks music by musician and composer William Sidney Gwynn Williams (1896-1978). Williams additionally performed a serious position within the basis of the Llangollen Worldwide Eisteddfod in 1947: certainly, he grew to become the competition’s first musical director.
Predominant picture: Getty Pictures
