From: hrjones@socrates.berkeley.edu
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1998 21:22:09 -0700 (PDT)
To: minstrel@pbm.com
Subject: re: minstrel: Bards -  longish and heading out of SCA purview
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On Thu, 15 Oct 1998 yarrowp@mscd.edu wrote:

> >Some day, I'd love to do an 18th century re-creation event just so that
> >all those wonderful early collections of Welsh harp music can be presented
> >in their _proper_ setting!
> 
> >Tangwystyl
> 
> Thank you, Tangwystyl, for a fascinating article!  I'm very curious to know 
> whether we're looking at material from the end of the 16th century, the 
> 18th, or a mixture.  It seems unlikely that Jones would identify something 
> as "ancient" if it was written within his own century, assuming 1) 
> truthfulness on his part  and 2) that someone didn't deliberately 
> perpetrate a hoax on him.  100 years or more, he would probably grace with 

It needn't be either of these. Keep in mind that, at the time he was
writing, there was a positive value placed on "old" material, and there
was a tendency to interpret things as "old" if at all possible. He needn't
have been untruthful, merely credulous and _desiring_ to believe things
old. And his sources needn't have intentionally hoaxed him -- they may
have genuinely believed the tunes to be ancient, or have lost track of
where they learned them, or simply been vague about things like dates.
Just about every writer of "traditional-style" songs today has had someone
mistakenly assume that something they composed was "ancient" or at the
very least "traditional". I know it's happened to me. It needn't even
require a high level of plausibility -- I've run into people who were
willing to swear that the "Chastity Belt" song was "traditional" (despite
the "Yale" reference!). The average person of his day was no better than
the average person of ours at being able to listen to a tune or song and
tell you when it was composed.

> that label.  He did identify the arrangements of the tunes in Bardic Museum 
> and Bardic Relics as his own work, which leaves me with some hope that 
> Jones, at least, wasn't willingly perpetrating a forgery.

I've never run into any suggestions that he was. Of course, mind you, his
"arrangements" have a tendency to come out sounding like typical mid-18th
century chamber music. And there's no telling whether than included
messing with the tunes a little to make them fit the genre better. As one
example, a very large number of the "harp airs" recorded by the 18th
century antiquarians include accidentals that fit in very nicely with the
sound and modes of 17th and 18th century "learned" music ... but that
don't work very well on a non-chromatic harp. Now, in the mid-18th
century, chromatic harps were widely used in Wales -- in particular, the
"triple harp" that has now become closely associated with Wales. But this
wasn't the case before the 17th century (the triple harp was first
introduced into Britain in 1629 -- it originated in Italy ca. 1600). Jones
probably would not have considered these accendentals in the music as
incompatible with the "antiquity" of the tunes, because it probably
wouldn't have occurred to him that chromatic harps were a relative
newcomer to the scene. But from our broader perspective, we can assume
that any tune with this sort of accidental has been modified -- at least
to that extent, but likely more -- from whatever possible period form it
might have had.

> Slight tangent - In the Jones harp pieces (I don't know if it's the 1784 or 
> the one quoted above) there is one known as "Cynghansail Cymry" (sp?  I 

A really fun piece! I'm not up to doing any of the complicated variations
at full speed, but it's fun to play with.

> don't have Jones with me - the same piece is in Williams, W. S. Gwynn. 
> Ceinciau Telyn Cymru: Harp Tunes of Wales. Cwmni Cyhoeddi Gwynn Cyf, 
> Penygroes, Gwynedd, 1962 - last piece - for anyone who may have this but 
> not have access to Jones.) which displays considerable parallels to the ap 
> Huw material.  Coincidental?  Someone's recreation?  Or a survival of the 
> earlier tradition?  Jones's comprehension of the tablature in ap Huw seems 

The major similarity that I see to the ap Huw material is in the "short
theme and variations" style. (A style that was not confined to Welsh harp
music in that period, of course.) The chording is significantly different.
As far as I can tell, all the ap Huw pieces alternate between two chords
only, whereas 'Cynghansail Cymry' uses five different chords in a
progression extremely reminiscent of (if not identical to) Pachelbel's
Canon. I don't doubt that the "theme and variations" style was a
legitimate continuing tradition -- particularly since it would have been
reinforced by influences from mainstream chamber music -- but I'm not sure
you can say more than that.

> Of course, Iolo Morgannwg had "discovered" a manuscript with similar 
> tablature.  There will be a paper on this manuscript in the third volume of 
> Welsh Music History, due for release in December.  This volume will be 
> devoted to papers presented at a symposium on the ap Huw manuscript.  For 
> more information:

Cool -- thanks!

> If you ever decide to do that 18th century Welsh event, please let me know 
> - I'd love to be there.  (Perhaps the Mythopoeic Society would be willing 
> to sponsor it during the conference in 2001?  I think that will be in 
> Berkeley.  Certainly related to fantasy literature's roots . . .)

Well, maybe by then I'll have finished the PhD and have time to run
events!

Tangwystyl

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PLEASE NOTE ==> New E-mail address

WAS <hrjones@uclink.berkeley.edu>
NOW IS <hrjones@socrates.berkeley.edu>
                ^^^^^^^^
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