What do you think?
Rate this book
Music in Welsh Culture Before 1650: A Study of the Principal Sources
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. This book challenges and refutes two widely held assumptions - that music in Wales before 1650 is impoverished and elusive, and that the extant sources are too obscure and fragmentary to warrant serious study. Harper demonstrates that there is a far wider body of source material than is generally realized, comprising liturgical manuscripts, archival materials, chronicles and retrospective histories, inventories of pieces and players, vernacular poetry and treatises. This book examines three principal the unique tradition of cerdd dant (literally '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 distinctive musical tradition of considerable cultural significance, aspects of which have an important impact on wider musical practice beyond Wales.
462 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 25, 2014
This is a joint review of David N. Klausner's Records of Early Drama: Wales and Sally Harper's Music in Welsh Culture Before 1650: A Study of the Principal Sources.
Both of these books think they are aimed at the university library market. This is both good and bad. On the good side, they are detailed, exhaustive, and meticulously-documented collections of data with sufficient analysis to contextualize the material, but with the assumption that they will be used as background for further, more interpretive research. They don't tell you what to think; they tell you what you need to know to figure out what to think for yourself. On the bad side, they are quite expensive books (the drama book was $200, the music book normally lists for $100 but I got it at a major conference discount) with essentially no publicity outside those who already know about them.
I'd actually been waiting for Klausner's book for maybe half a decade, ever since I'd met him at a Welsh studies conference and he mentioned it among his works in progress. It's part of a series of sourcebooks on early drama in the British Isles being produced by the University of Toronto Press. Most of the series is organized in volumes based on counties, but the Welsh material seemed to call for a more unified approach, for which we can probably be grateful as it means we get the whole in a single chunk rather than waiting for various authors to finish up their individual projects. Another benefit of Klausner's approach is that, given the relatively scanty material on drama in its strictest sense in the period covered (essentially, up through the mid 17th century), he has expanded the scope of the work to include performance art of all sorts: drama, music, poetry, song. The introduction gives a brief history of Wales and the social context of performance art there, then a discussion and catalog of the types of materials used. And then we get into a long and varied collection of quotations of textual material that describe, discuss, catalog, explain, or simply mention in passing anything related to the performing arts. The texts are given in their original language (and then, in the appendices, in translation). Just to give a sense of the varied nature of the material, here's a summary starting from the front.
Gerald of Wales (references in his Description/Itinerary)
Mentions, especially of bards, in the Welsh laws
A 16th century list of "notable crwth players, harpers, and poets"
Various English laws that concern "minstrels" and "bards" in Wales
Summaries of various lawsuits either involving performers or where performance art was involved in the crime
Various diary and account entries giving payments to performers
Lists of tunes played on various occasions
Descriptions of eisteddfods
Scripts of masques performed in Welsh locations
Wills that mention musical instruments
Although not included in complete form, back when I first met him, Klausner set me on the track of an edition of three short "interlude" plays in Welsh, written around the end of the 16th century.
Harper's book on sources concerning music in Wales (again, up to the mid 17th century) is very similar in approach, with the exception that it identifies, catalogs, and discusses the original source material but doesn't include the original texts (although many are excerpted for illustrative purposes). The book is organized topically, covering native string music, church music, and then "international" music as performed in Wales. The usefulness of this work for the professional scholar goes without saying. For the non-scholar with an interest in pre-modern Welsh music, it supplies a detailed, yet reasonably accessible, summary of the sources, the issues, and the problems. It gives you pointers to those topics where more information is available, and gently lets you down on those topics where there simply isn't anything to be found. There is also an extensive bibliography of research in the field and even a discography of performances of covered material.
I have a suspicion that one of the reasons I'm excessively fond of books like these two is that they match so well my own research tendencies. Because so many of the fields I'm interested in are full of gaps and holes in the available information, my own instincts are to catalog what is there so that readers can build their own interpolations and interpretations rather than giving them a single interpretation (mine) to swallow whole. And when I read other people's research on these sorts of topics, I'm wary of authors that only give me their pre-digested, pre-interpreted conclusions, with a careful selection of the supporting data. I want them to show me all the information they were working from, so that I can come to my own conclusions, if necessary. Others may cry out in frustration, "Just give me a tune to sing and a play to produce!" but I'd rather know where the rotten boards are on the stage.
Both of these books think they are aimed at the university library market. This is both good and bad. On the good side, they are detailed, exhaustive, and meticulously-documented collections of data with sufficient analysis to contextualize the material, but with the assumption that they will be used as background for further, more interpretive research. They don't tell you what to think; they tell you what you need to know to figure out what to think for yourself. On the bad side, they are quite expensive books (the drama book was $200, the music book normally lists for $100 but I got it at a major conference discount) with essentially no publicity outside those who already know about them.
I'd actually been waiting for Klausner's book for maybe half a decade, ever since I'd met him at a Welsh studies conference and he mentioned it among his works in progress. It's part of a series of sourcebooks on early drama in the British Isles being produced by the University of Toronto Press. Most of the series is organized in volumes based on counties, but the Welsh material seemed to call for a more unified approach, for which we can probably be grateful as it means we get the whole in a single chunk rather than waiting for various authors to finish up their individual projects. Another benefit of Klausner's approach is that, given the relatively scanty material on drama in its strictest sense in the period covered (essentially, up through the mid 17th century), he has expanded the scope of the work to include performance art of all sorts: drama, music, poetry, song. The introduction gives a brief history of Wales and the social context of performance art there, then a discussion and catalog of the types of materials used. And then we get into a long and varied collection of quotations of textual material that describe, discuss, catalog, explain, or simply mention in passing anything related to the performing arts. The texts are given in their original language (and then, in the appendices, in translation). Just to give a sense of the varied nature of the material, here's a summary starting from the front.
Gerald of Wales (references in his Description/Itinerary)
Mentions, especially of bards, in the Welsh laws
A 16th century list of "notable crwth players, harpers, and poets"
Various English laws that concern "minstrels" and "bards" in Wales
Summaries of various lawsuits either involving performers or where performance art was involved in the crime
Various diary and account entries giving payments to performers
Lists of tunes played on various occasions
Descriptions of eisteddfods
Scripts of masques performed in Welsh locations
Wills that mention musical instruments
Although not included in complete form, back when I first met him, Klausner set me on the track of an edition of three short "interlude" plays in Welsh, written around the end of the 16th century.
Harper's book on sources concerning music in Wales (again, up to the mid 17th century) is very similar in approach, with the exception that it identifies, catalogs, and discusses the original source material but doesn't include the original texts (although many are excerpted for illustrative purposes). The book is organized topically, covering native string music, church music, and then "international" music as performed in Wales. The usefulness of this work for the professional scholar goes without saying. For the non-scholar with an interest in pre-modern Welsh music, it supplies a detailed, yet reasonably accessible, summary of the sources, the issues, and the problems. It gives you pointers to those topics where more information is available, and gently lets you down on those topics where there simply isn't anything to be found. There is also an extensive bibliography of research in the field and even a discography of performances of covered material.
I have a suspicion that one of the reasons I'm excessively fond of books like these two is that they match so well my own research tendencies. Because so many of the fields I'm interested in are full of gaps and holes in the available information, my own instincts are to catalog what is there so that readers can build their own interpolations and interpretations rather than giving them a single interpretation (mine) to swallow whole. And when I read other people's research on these sorts of topics, I'm wary of authors that only give me their pre-digested, pre-interpreted conclusions, with a careful selection of the supporting data. I want them to show me all the information they were working from, so that I can come to my own conclusions, if necessary. Others may cry out in frustration, "Just give me a tune to sing and a play to produce!" but I'd rather know where the rotten boards are on the stage.
Displaying 1 of 1 review