Music in Welsh Culture Before 1650: A Study of the Principal Sources

Sally Harper provides the first serious study of Welsh music before 1650, and draws on a wide range of sources in Welsh, Latin, and English to illuminate early musical practice. Although few books with conventional notation survive, this study shows that such sources may be considered alongside other types of more prolific material, such as vernacular poetry, histories and chronicles, inventories of pieces and players, and musical treatises. Viewed as a whole, this body of material bears witness to a flourishing and unique musical tradition of considerable cultural significance, aspects of which have an important bearing on wider musical practice beyond Wales. Music in Wales has long been a neglected area. Scholars have been deterred both by the need for a knowledge of the Welsh language, and by the fact that an oral tradition in Wales persisted far later than in other parts of Britain, resulting in a limited number of sources with conventional notation. Sally Harper provides the first serious study of Welsh music before 1650 and draws on a wide range of sources in Welsh, Latin and English to illuminate early musical practice. The book challenges two prevailing assumptions, both of them false: namely (a) that music in Wales before 1650 is impoverished and elusive; and (b) that the extant sources are too obscure to warrant serious study. Harper demonstrates that there is a far wider body of source material than is generally realised, comprising liturgical manuscripts, archival materials, chronicles and retrospective histories, inventories of pieces and players, vernacular poetry, and treatises. The book is structured around three distinct musical categories: the uniquely Welsh practice of cerdd dant ('the music of the string', for harp and crwth); the Latin liturgy in Wales and its embellishment, and 'Anglicised' sacred and secular materials from c.1580, which show Welsh music mirroring English practice.Taken together, the primary material presented in this book bears witness to a flourishing and unique musical tradition of considerable cultural significance, aspects of which have an important bearing on wider musical practice beyond Wales. Contents: Introduction: The sources of Welsh music in context. Part I The Sources and Practice of Medieval Cerdd Dant: Cerdd Dant: the codification of a Welsh musical craft; Harp and crwth in early medieval Wales; The players of Cerdd Dant and their social code; Gathering the documentation of Cerdd Dant; Historical and theoretical sources; The Robert ap Huw manuscript and other Welsh tablature. Part II The Latin Liturgy, its Chant and Embellishment: Sources for the medieval Welsh liturgy: an overview; Early Welsh Clas institutions; The sources in the context of Anglo-Norman reform; Liturgical revision and the adoption of Sarum Use; Sources with chant I: the Penpont Antiphoner; Sources with chant II: the Bangor Pontifical; Late medieval evidence I: the institutions; Late medieval evidence II: musical practice. Part III Welsh Music in an English Milieu c.15501650: Mirroring England: cultural imitation and infiltration: Domestic and popular music-making I: the context; Domestic and popular music-making II: the repertory; A Welsh translation of John Case's Apologia Musices; The post-Reformation church I: parish and people; The post-Reformation church II: cathedral and household chapel. Appendix; Bibliography; Index.About the Author: Sally Harper is Senior Postgraduate Tutor at the School of Music, University of Wales Bangor, UK.

Sally Harper is a senior lecturer and Director of Postgraduate Studies in the School of Music, University of Wales, Bangor, where she also directs the Centre for Advanced Welsh Music Studies.