Book - The Art of Music: Branding the Welsh Nation - Hardback
£40.00
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ISBN: 9781914595257 (1914595254)
Publisher: Parthian Book
Format: Hardback, 276x237 mm, 300 pages
Language: English
Visual culture has long been a vital component in the creation and dissemination of this prevalent national brand. The Art of Music describes the visualisation of Welsh music and musicians both in the context of the evolution of the self-image of the Welsh people, and of its influence on outside perceptions of Welshness within Britain and the wider world.
Gwales Review
Writing the history of any branch of art is a challenge, but to examine two such branches and their interaction over a span of several hundred years demands rare skill and judgement. Fortunately, this volume displays both. It brings together two experienced authors who are established authorities in their fields: Peter Lord, who has done so much to enlighten us about the artistic tradition in Wales, and Rhian Davies, whose research on Welsh music has likewise added considerably to our knowledge and understanding. Together they set out to trace the evolution of the concept of Wales as a musical nation as reflected in its art. The result is a very satisfying and thought-provoking survey.
Some of us have shown a tendency to trace the idea of the musical nation back to the vigorous choral culture of nineteenth-century Wales, and no further. This book shows that the iconography of Welsh music can be traced from the Middle Ages onward, in the wooden bosses in church roofs which depict instrumentalists, and although the evidence for the early period is scant, it is well used here. From the eighteenth century onward, the development of portraiture shows us not only how harpers and other musicians were depicted but also how that portrayal gave to the world an image of Welsh life and of those who made music.
In the late eighteenth century the passion for antiquities was expressed in the publication of collections of Welsh melodies by the blind harper John Parry, Edward Jones (Bardd y Brenin), and John Parry, (Bardd Alaw). We have been used to concentrating on the musical content of these volumes, with little regard for their now discredited claims about the antiquity of Welsh music; but the frontispieces of such volumes, depicting Gray’s ‘Bard’ and penillion singing in a rural setting, are here shown to reflect subtle changes in the relation of Wales to the rest of Britain and an evolving perception of Welsh musical life.
That perception was transformed in the nineteenth century with the rapid growth of eisteddfodau as large-scale music festivals and the emergence of mass-produced images which ensured the dissemination of the musical brand. Wales was widely perceived as a country that loved to sing and be seen singing. In the twentieth century the brand was confirmed by images transferred in films like Proud Valley and How Green was my Valley and television extravaganzas; but not only in such images, as the authors make subtle connections with striking works of twentieth-century art, notably Evan Walters’s moving 'Bydd Myrdd o Ryfeddodau' of 1926 and the paintings of Ceri Richards.
Robert Burns once famously asked for the gift ‘to see ourselves as others see us’. What this remarkable study shows is that how we portray ourselves in a complex and ever-changing world is just as important. Meticulously researched, beautifully illustrated and sumptuously produced, this is a book which will instruct and delight in equal measure.
Rhidian Griffiths
Some of us have shown a tendency to trace the idea of the musical nation back to the vigorous choral culture of nineteenth-century Wales, and no further. This book shows that the iconography of Welsh music can be traced from the Middle Ages onward, in the wooden bosses in church roofs which depict instrumentalists, and although the evidence for the early period is scant, it is well used here. From the eighteenth century onward, the development of portraiture shows us not only how harpers and other musicians were depicted but also how that portrayal gave to the world an image of Welsh life and of those who made music.
In the late eighteenth century the passion for antiquities was expressed in the publication of collections of Welsh melodies by the blind harper John Parry, Edward Jones (Bardd y Brenin), and John Parry, (Bardd Alaw). We have been used to concentrating on the musical content of these volumes, with little regard for their now discredited claims about the antiquity of Welsh music; but the frontispieces of such volumes, depicting Gray’s ‘Bard’ and penillion singing in a rural setting, are here shown to reflect subtle changes in the relation of Wales to the rest of Britain and an evolving perception of Welsh musical life.
That perception was transformed in the nineteenth century with the rapid growth of eisteddfodau as large-scale music festivals and the emergence of mass-produced images which ensured the dissemination of the musical brand. Wales was widely perceived as a country that loved to sing and be seen singing. In the twentieth century the brand was confirmed by images transferred in films like Proud Valley and How Green was my Valley and television extravaganzas; but not only in such images, as the authors make subtle connections with striking works of twentieth-century art, notably Evan Walters’s moving 'Bydd Myrdd o Ryfeddodau' of 1926 and the paintings of Ceri Richards.
Robert Burns once famously asked for the gift ‘to see ourselves as others see us’. What this remarkable study shows is that how we portray ourselves in a complex and ever-changing world is just as important. Meticulously researched, beautifully illustrated and sumptuously produced, this is a book which will instruct and delight in equal measure.
Rhidian Griffiths
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