Орехово-Зуевский Государственный Педагогический Институт
Кафедра английского языка
Реферат по страноведению на тему:
Welsh traditional music
Выполнила студентка
5 курса 502а группы английского отделения
Андрианова Т.В.
Преподаватель:
Абульханов Р.А.
Орехово-Зуево
2002
Contents:
1. The peculiarities of folk music in Wales…………………………………..3
2. Plethyn……………………………………………………………………..6
3. Boys of the Lough…………………………………………………………7
4. Rag Foundation…………………………………………………………….8
5. Fernhill……………………………………………………………………..9
6. The renaissance of Welsh traditional music……………………………….12
1.The peculiarities of folk music in Wales
Wales is the only Celtic nation with a completely unbroken tradition
of harp music, where the music, technique, and style have been passed down
orally from harper to harper over the centuries. Wales is best known for
its large-ensemble choral singing. But this principality lying along
Britain's southwestern shore also has a proud Celtic tradition of smaller,
more tightly knit bands that perform native instrumentals and folk songs.
Wales is a land of song, sung either by male voice choirs or crowds at
rugby matches. But there has been singing of all manner of songs in all
manner of places, from the Canu'r Pwnc chanting of scripture in chapel to
the scurrilous rhymes sung in pubs. All that is commonly known about Welsh
poetry is that it comes in forms of mind-boggling complexity. But there is
a great variety of metre and tone. Bands such as Pigyn Clust are mining
these veins in new and startling ways, juxtaposing melodies, and verse
forms.
In Ireland and Scotland, because traditional music is better
established, the orthodoxies too are stronger. While musicians improve
technically - and there are some phenomenally accomplished players and
singers - there is little innovation, beyond often misguided collaborations
with musicians from incompatible traditions. If the Chieftains finally
stopped coming to town then a similar band playing similar music would soon
fill the vacuum - Lunasa, for instance. Should Aly Bain, the Boys of the
Lough's fiddler, lay down his bow then Catriona MacDonald would step in.
But in Wales musicians are rediscovering, recreating and reinterpreting their traditional music, which is crucial to the development of their culture. Of all the Celtic countries it is Wales where the traditional music is most interesting and most vital.
The bardic and eisteddfod traditions have long dominated Welsh music
and, partly as a result, the Celtic music boom which propelled Irish,
Scots, Breton and even Galician music into the international spotlight,
somehow left Wales behind. Several excellent artists have made inroads
through the years, notably the harp-playing brothers Dafydd and Gwyndaf
Roberts of Ar Log, the singer/harpist Sian James, 70s group Plethyn and
fiery dance band Calennig.
The Welsh have a drastically different style of playing, largely due
to the nature of the music itself. Their music is ornamented through theme
and variation, a more classical style, rather than through the sort of
ornamentation heard in Scottish and Irish music. Due to this love of
Baroque-like style, the Welsh adopted the triple harp as their national
instrument, taking advantage of the three rows of strings to play a wide
variety of variations on traditional Welsh melodies. (Triple-strung harps
have two diatonic rows on either side, and a row of accidentals up the
middle, which the harper plays by reaching between the outer strings to
play).
The harp is of course the instrument most closely
identified with Wales. But though it's accorded the highest respect there,
the fiddle and the accordion are perhaps embraced with greater affection.
CDs sampling the traditions of both have recently been released, but for
many listeners these will be introductions rather than surveys. The
squeezebox anthology Megin (bellows) is especially good. The range of
repertoire, and even instruments, is remarkable, from the robust melodeon
dance music of Meg and Neil Browning from North Wales to John Morgan
(clearly influenced by harp players) whose duet concertina combines the
gravitas of a church organ with the delicacy of a flute. The inclusive
nature of this selection is significant too; players from the south-
eastern, urban, (post-) industrial region rub shoulders with those from the
Marches, the rural and largely English-speaking area running along the
border. It even includes the Brecon Hornpipe and Dic y Cymro played by John
Kirkpatrick - the most famous of English box players who lives on the
eastern side, in Shropshire. So the CD draws on and expresses the complex
reality and the richness of Wales, recognising that music will not be
confined by city nor countryside, language nor national boundary.
Those instrumental traditions were not well known, and the
fiddle certainly suffered in the religious revivals of the 19th century,
when many were burned. But at least they did not disappear completely. The
bray harp, the instrument of medieval bards, then the peasants of South
Wales, and bagpipes - of which there were various local kinds - were not so
fortunate. Tunes and references to players remain and in recent years Ceri
Rhys Matthews and Jonathan Shorland have recreated bagpipes and researched
their repertoires, while William Taylor has reconstructed the smaller bray
harp. Such enterprises are academically fraught, but musically very
exciting. That there are no masters from whom to learn the nuances of
phrasing, accent and the trick of grace-notes - those details of
performance which distinguish traditional music - is a grave loss, but it
does give the contemporary musician enviable freedom.
Ned Thomas had noted in his revelatory book The Welsh Extremist that
'when two Welsh speakers meet the topic of conversation is the state of the
language'. What Welsh traditional music was played tended to serve the
cause of a culture in crisis, rather than express it. So like a cramped
toenail, it grew inward. "Between about 1980 and 1990 there was almost no
awareness of what was going on elsewhere," a Welsh musician recently told
me. "Wales became Albania."
In modern times a whole gamut of outstanding bands are making
their presence felt, including The Kilbride Brothers, Rag Foundation,
Aberjaber and folk-rock band Blue Horses, Fernhill.
2. Plethyn
This trio from Powys in mid-Wales, together for 25 years, are
celebrated for close vocal harmonies laid over a spare instrumental mix of
guitar, mandolin, tin whistle and concertina. Siblings Linda Healy and Roy
Griffiths, along with their friend John Gittins, have pioneered a more
intimate singing style, based on the Plygain choral tradition. Nowhere is
that more apparent than in Plethyn's a cappella rendition of the Welsh
traditional song "Cainc Yr Aradwr" ("The Ploughboy's Song"), from this
outstanding 1994 album, whose title is Welsh for "Yesterday's Cider."
3. Boys of the Lough
Boys of the Lough are one of the past masters of celtic music, combining members from several celtic traditions with a long history; where other celtic groups last a few years, the Boys are now in their third decade and retain two of their earliest members. Like that other long- running act the Chieftans, their music tends to the formal; impeccable technique and sensitivity, with large, sometimes classical-style arrangements, and very tight ensemble playing. They lack the fire and roughness of other groups; the overall feeling is of a group of skilled, well-integrated musicians playing together for the pure pleasure of it.
The history of the Boys has several twists and turns. The group was
formed in 1967, as a trio of Cathal McConnell, Tommy Gunn of Fermanagh and
Robin Morton from Portadown. Tommy Gunn later dropped out and the remaining
duo recorded "An Irish Jubliee" in 1969. At the sametime, Shetland fiddler
Aly Bain and singer/guitarist Mike Whelans were playing on the Scottish
folk circuit. The two duos met up at the Falkirk folk festival where they
played together and some time later, in 1971 came together for good. Dick
Gaughan of Leith replaced Mike in 1972 and this lineup recorded the first
'official' group album in 1972. Dick, in turn, left in 1973 and was
replaced by Dave Richardson of Northumberland, bringing in new instruments
including, cittern, banjo and mandolin. This lineup continued for several
year, touring widely in Europe and America and releasing 6 albums, two of
them recorded live. Live at Passim's was recorded at Passim's in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, and Wish You Were Here comes from a tour of the Scottish
Highlands and Islands. Robin Morton left in 1979 and was replaced with Dave
Richardson's brother, Tich, on guitar. Tich was killed in a road accident
in late 1983. After some time, the band came together again with new
members Christy O' Leary and John Coakley and have kept that lineup ever
since.
Current Lineup
Aly Bain Fiddle
Cathal McConnell Flute and Tin Whistle, Vocals
Dave Richardson Mandolin, cittern, English concertina, button accordion
Christy O' Leary Uileann pipes, tin whistle, mouth-organ and vocals
Chris Newman Guitar
4. Rag Foundation
Woollard's band, Rag Foundation, from Swansea, is one of several
groups of young urban musicians who have come to traditional music in the
way they have come to the Welsh language, through questioning their
identity, their cultural distinctiveness. They have been described by the
trade press as the most dynamic band to emerge from Wales for many years.
Their current albums 'Minka' and 'South by SouthWest' have been critically
acclaimed by press, TV, radio and festival organisers. They have toured
extensively in many countries as far apart as Canada, Latvia, India,
Holland, Egypt, Hungary and France as well as the UK. Woollard's own story
is quite remarkable: introduced to traditional music by a fiddle player
recording a session for a trip-hop outfit he was in, he began researching
songs of his region, came across Phil Tanner… and discovered he was his
great uncle. But Woollard's style owes as much to Tom Jones and Shirley
Bassey - the total commitment to the song of the working class, pub singer
of South Wales - as it does to folk music. When Rag Foundation performed
for the first time in London the people running the venue were surprised
when two busloads of young urban ravers pitched up too. "We have this
following of clubbers who come round with us," Woollard explained. "What
we're doing is dance music, which is what they're into. Ours is just an
older version of it." Even so, it is the power of the traditional song that
inspires Rag Foundation, and Woollard inhabits rather than exploits the
material. "I want to bring these songs to an audience my age, but I don't
want to stick drum and bass all over them. It's in the performance. If
you're honest in your delivery what you're singing about will come across."
5. Fernhill.
Since they formed in 1996, Fernhill have become important cultural
ambassadors for Wales and its music, having toured in 20 countries
including performances for the King of Swaziland and the President of
Mozambique. 'These daring musical deconstructionists have become the prime
movers in a crop of talented bands injecting new life and an exciting
contemporary dynamic into traditional Welsh music' .
LIVE BAND LINE-UP
Julie Murphy vocals
Richard Llewellyn guitar
Cass Meurig fiddle
Tomos Williams trumpet
Andy Coughlan double bass
Paradoxically they only had one Welsh member when they achieved
national attention, bagpiper and guitarist Ceri Rhys Matthews from the
Swansea valley. Yet Essex-born Julie Murphy has lived in Wales for many
years and, totally absorbed in the culture and history of the country,
sings confidently in the Welsh language when the occasion demands it. Not
that they play exclusively Welsh music. They also perform English folk
songs, impassioned Breton tunes and vibrant French songs while fully
embracing the modern roots ideology, introducing the influences of their
many travels, notably African and Eastern European music.
Julie Murphy met Ceri Matthews at art college in Maidstone, and when
the course was over she returned to Wales with him, learning the language
and absorbing the culture. Although she had no folk background to speak of,
Murphy developed a natural feel for performing traditional songs, and she
and Matthews started working as a duo. They met Jonathan Shorland in 1986
when they were on the same bill at the Pontardawe folk festival. Shorland
joined them on stage playing the pibgorn, a Welsh horn pipe, and they
started working together with three other musicians as a music and art
group called Saith Rhyfeddod.
Raised in the New Forest, Shorland had become obsessed by reed
instruments as a devotee of David Munro’s music programme on Radio 3 while
at Aberystwyth University. He became an expert in Celtic traditions,
learning to make bagpipes and travelling extensively in Eastern Europe and
Brittany, playing regularly with Breton musicians. He is said to be the
first person to introduce the bombard into Welsh music.
Murphy teamed up with Blowzabella’s ex-hurdy gurdy player Nigel
Eaton, resulting in the experimental Whirling Pope Joan project which made
a big impact with its alternative rhythms and challenging material. Also
involved in the project was Andy Cutting, a melodeon and accordion ace from
Harrow brought up in a family steeped in English traditional music. When
invited on a British Council tour in Gaza, Murphy invited Andy Cutting to
accompany her. When in 1996 Tim Healey of Beautiful Jo Records invited
Julie Murphy, Ceri Matthews and Jonathan Shorland to contribute to a
compilation of Celtic music, they roped in Andy Cutting.
The result was Fernhill, who have subsequently toured
extensively and produced a series of fine albums which reaffirm the rich
spirit of Welsh folk music while moving boldly into new areas. Mixing oboe
with bagpipes, diatonic accordion, guitar and numerous other instruments
they have challenged all preconceptions about folk music, recognising no
dividing line between Welsh dance music and the roots music of Kenya,
Pakistan or any point beyond.
They now work mainly as a trio of Murphy, Matthews and Cutting, but all are involved with other musicians as they strive to break down further barriers between musical style and the audience it appeals to.
They have recorded three critically acclaimed albums; the
latest, Whilia, was a top twenty album in the Folk Roots poll 2000.
Fernhill created a new musical landscape from the indigenous dance rhythms
and folk poetry of Wales. Julie Murphy's passionate singing combined with
guitar, fiddle, double bass and trumpet produces a sound both gutsy and
enchanting.
In 2001 the band contributed a performance to the film 'Beautiful
Mistake' about the Welsh music scene which includes performances by James
Dean Bradfield, Catatonia, Super Furry Animals, and Gorkys Zygotic Mynci.
Julie Murphy also collaborated with ex velvet underground member John Cale;
he accompanied her on a track from her solo album Black Mountains Revisited
(a MOJO folk album of 99).
6. The renaissance of Welsh traditional music
Manic Street Preachers, Catatonia and even Tom Jones assure Welsh
people that their identity is not naff. Gorki's Zygotic Mynki, Super Furry
Animals and Datblygu prove that indeed it's cool - and that singing in
Welsh is no obstacle to commercial success. People are beginning to
remember that the Velvet Underground founder member John Cale's first
language is Welsh (earlier this year he was in Cardiff working with
musicians who prefer to perform in it).
Neil Browning is part of a growing movement in Wales, one that is not out to preserve the old folk music, but to make it come alive, to breathe again. While he has a great knowledge and respect for the old tunes and the old ways, he is not hestitant to push it as much as the song requires.
Neil has contributed three pieces to the festival. The first is straight traditional music for accordion, guitar and bodhran. The second is an original tune that is decidedly contemporary, adventuring into a global turf while still maintaining a distinct Welsh air to it. The third is another traditional tune (title unknown), but with the accompaniment of classical guitar, it takes on a new and different feeling.
Nansi Richards plays orally learned melodies and variations with clarity and passion. Her variations are vibrant, ringing out with the sound only a triple-strung harp can make. She also plays the more common single-strung harp beautifully on several of the tracks.
There are many reasons for this renewed self-confidence; the growing appetite for the music of other cultures, a degree of political autonomy and, not least, the success of those who did devote themselves to the cause of Welsh. They may not have produced much great music, but they assured that not only is the language surviving, people can converse in it in some security, relax and just get on with life.
So they are beginning to look about them, hack their way through the
overgrown and almost forgotten paths to the spring of their traditional
music. It's still flowing. The new Rough Guide to the Music of Wales CD
opens with a harp tune by Llio Rhydderch, who was brought up in a master-
pupil teaching tradition that stretches back to the fourteenth century.
There's also a recording she made of her teacher Nansi Richards, who was
steeped in the aesthetic and technique of eighteenth century harpers. What
is striking and refreshing about both players is their power. If you find
most Celtic harp music plinking and fey, the strength as well as the beauty
of this ancient music will be a welcome surprise.
The Welsh tradition is untouched," says Neil Woollard, gleefully. "So the music is more open to interpretation. I know we've got the perfect opportunity here, setting the parameters of what you can do.
Tradition" is the organic element of world culture. Pop music by its very nature is disposable. The only future for a great pop song is as nostalgia. The tradition however is timeless and recyclable and is renewed as each generation discovers its roots. - Billy Bragg, musician