I was having one of my nights sitting up, doing nothing when I had a sudden craving for Welsh music. Now, generations of male voice choirs have given Welsh music a bad rep ("And he sings far too loud, far too often, and flat!") but it has been rescued of late:-
And if you can rescue Myfanwy - that most maudlin of songs** - you are a true genius! I've been across to Amazon and ordered Tir on the strength of it.
If you're in the mood for something a little more stirring and stereotypical (I can't believe I've written that something's more stereotypical than Myfanwy!)
And finally, something a little more fun..
*A small dollop of kudos to the first to give the sources of both the title of this post and the quotation about Welsh singing without referring to Google (truly Ancestral Voices!)
**With apologies to those who sit in the Danny Boy camp.
Apart form Men of Harlech the only welsh Heard was from the 80's new wave band Ultravox man of two worlds.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQn6nSjmfog
A much-maligned language from a misunderstood country.
DeleteThe only nation that enthrones its poets.
And well done to them for it!
DeleteAlthough Jews do require a literacy test to be considered a man. Which is pretty cool, too.
Erm.
ReplyDeleteHaving set the challenge of identifying Ancestral Voices, I find I've messed up my poems. I've misquoted Kubla Khan, when I was *really* was thinking "Those Angel faces smile/Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile!"
There's a good reason which I confused the two, and it goes back to the theme of the post. (A the risk of sounding like the Legatus) I quoted both lines at different times to a bemused girlfriend. Not the wonderful Irish/South African/English redhead known to you, dear reader, as The Wife, but another who didn't share those particular ancestors.
Everyone has to run the risk of sounding like the Legatus now and again.
DeleteI've always had a fondness for welch make voice choirs, but I suppose after Sean Nos anything is an improvement. There's a really fine choir that attends my church occasionally that is made up of transplanted Welshmen and they are really fine.
ReplyDeleteLovely place and a wonderful language. Cymru am byth!
ReplyDeleteMy ancestry is primarily Welsh, though I don't speak the language. Of course, since the first people in my family apparently arrived in the New World somewhere in the early 17th Century, that is perhaps excusable.
ReplyDeleteGreat songs. Thanks!
Of course Madog ab Owain Gwynedd established the first Welsh settlement in North America in 1170, several hundred years before Columbus...
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