125 years ago today…..
Tag: Cyfarthfa Band
Meta Scott
Today marks the 130th anniversary of the death of another of Merthyr’s great musical talents – Meta Scott.
Meta Scott was born Sarah Margaret Scott in 1860, the daughter of William Scott, a grocer at Brecon Road.
William Scott, an able musician, played the flute in a small band which met in the family home, so the young Meta was surrounded by instrumental music from an early age. It was inevitable therefore that she soon showed her own musical talents, and began taking music lessons at the age of seven, soon excelling in both the piano and violin. It is said that she would practice for up to fifteen hours a day.
The hard work paid off and she was accepted at the Royal Academy of Music to further her studies, winning medals for playing both the violin and piano, and out of 500 students, Meta was chosen as the official accompanist for the Academy at a prestigious concert at St James Hall.
Following her graduation, she moved to Cardiff, and began her career as a performer. She was in demand throughout Wales as both an accompanist and a soloist, and also began teaching. Also, almost uniquely at the time for a woman, she formed and conducted several small orchestras throughout Wales, taking them to various Eisteddfodau and competing with very best of local musicians.
The pinnacle of this achievement came at the National Eisteddfod in Brecon in 1889, held in the grounds of the Castle. At the Eisteddfod, she led an orchestra from Merthyr in one of the principal competitions, reaching the final, but narrowly losing out to the Cardiff Orchestral Society under the leadership of Dr Joseph Parry.
It was soon after the Brecon Eisteddfod that Meta Scott became ill. At first it was thought that Meta was suffering from the effects of over-work, but it was soon realised that she was in fact suffering from tuberculosis. She cancelled all of her engagements and returned Merthyr where she fought a losing battle against the disease for the next two years. She died at her family home on 15 January 1892 at the age of 31.
Her funeral was attended by all of the prominent musicians and citizens of Merthyr, and as the funeral cortège made its way from Brecon Road to Cefn Cemetery, hundreds of people lined the route to pay their respects to the beloved musician. The cortège was headed by the Cyfarthfa Band, and followed by the massed choirs of Merthyr who had joined together to pay tribute to Meta. The service was conducted by Rev J G James, the minister of Market Square Chapel, and members Meta’s own orchestra, who had narrowly missed out on first prize at the Brecon Eisteddfod, carried her coffin to her final resting place.
A Lament for Sam Hughes – The Last Great Ophicleidist
By Professor Trevor Herbert
On 1st April 1898, Sam Hughes died in a small terraced house at Three Mile Cross on the outskirts of Reading. His widow, in grief and poverty, petitioned the Royal Society of Musicians for a small grant to pay for his funeral. The Society, which had treated him kindly in the closing years of his life, responded benevolently once more, for it was known that his passing marked the end of a significant, if brief, era. Sam Hughes was the last great ophicleide player. He was perhaps the only really great British ophicleide player. Many great romantic composers including Mendelssohn, Wagner and Berlioz wrote for the instrument, which was invented by a man called Halary in Paris in 1821 – three years before Sam Hughes was born. For the next half century it was widely used but few played it well. George Bernard Shaw regularly referred to it as the “chromatic bullock” but even he, whose caustic indignation was often vented on London’s brass players, had been moved by a rendering of O Ruddier than the Cherry by Mr Hughes.
The fate of the ophicleide (right) and the story of Sam Hughes provide a neat illustration of the pace and character of musical change in Britain in the Victorian period. One product of this change was the brass band “movement” – a movement which, if the untested claims of most authors on the subject are to be believed, had its origins in Wales. Despite Shaw’s claims that the ophicleide had been “born obsolete”, it died because it was consumed by the irresistible forces of technological invention and commercial exploitation. In particular, it was overtaken by the euphonium.
The euphonium was invented in the 1830s. It became popular some time later, but from the start it was easier to play and simpler and cheaper to manufacture. The makers ensured that the euphonium usurped the ophicleide’s position as the bass-baritone instrument in brass bands by contriving one of the neatest tricks of the 19th century. At brass band contests it was common to single out the best individual player of the day (irrespective of what instrument he performed on) and award him an elaborate prize – a sort of “man of the match” award. From the mid-century the winners of these awards were, with uncanny frequency, ophicleide players. Their prize was always a brand new euphonium. By about 1870 just about every good ophicleide player had “won” a euphonium.
The exception was Sam Hughes, who by that time had left the world of brass bands and was swanning around London with his ophicleide. He became professor of ophicleide at the Royal Military School of Music at Kneller Hall and at the Guildhall School of Music. He was destined for stardom with Jullien’s orchestra and to beguile George Bernard Shaw with O Ruddier than the Cherry at Covent Garden. In the mid-1850s Hughes was playing for the Cyfarthfa Brass Band in Merthyr Tydfil. Robert Thompson Crawshay, who had set up the band in 1838, had procured his services and arranged for him to have a job as a railway agent in Merthyr. He had apparently left by 1860, the year that the Cyfarthfa band came first at the great national contest at Crystal Palace. Their solo ophicleide player on that day was a man called Walker – he won a euphonium. The best brass band players in Wales were better than most of the professional brass players. The technical and artistic demands of the band repertoire were vastly greater than those of the orchestral repertoire. The likes of Sam Hughes demonstrated a touch that, by all accounts, drew gasps of admiration. The reasons why the players became so good and the consequences of that competence are worth thinking about.
Brass instruments were cheap and relatively easy to play. These two vital factors were pressed home by publishers, instrument manufacturers and everyone else who was astute enough to notice that an entire new market for music was opening. Musical literacy is easier to obtain than word literacy; to an extent, and unlike words, music looks like it sounds. It is possible, even probable, that many of the best 19th century brass band players (people who could play an Italian opera overture at sight) were otherwise illiterate.
Men like Sam Hughes were exemplars for those who followed. Their playing was heard by thousands at open-air contests and concerts. The brilliance of their playing was immediately evident and left little to doubt. Everyone could measure it. Musical skill is notorious for its lack of ambiguity; it is impossible to bluff your way through an ophicleide solo. The other issue of importance concerns the repertoire. While hymns and arrangements of Welsh folk songs are found in the surviving collections of music, the main body of the repertoire is classical or “art” music. Italian opera dominated the repertoire but Mozart, Haydn, Handel, Beethoven and Bach were also popular. (The adoption of Haydn and Handel as Christian names for boys came from this period). More modern music was also played. The Cyfarthfa repertoire included works by Wagner and a precociously talented local boy called Joseph Parry. Bands were the means by which instrumental art music became widely disseminated. The mass of the people had unequivocal access to this form of “high art”. They didn’t have to be able to read, and because most performances were in the open air, they didn’t even need the price of admission to hear the very best “modern music”.
The hand-written music from which players such as Sam Hughes played still survives. It provides unquestionable testimony as to how well the instruments were being played. Those who heard this playing did not just hear technical competence. They also heard musical virtuosity. Amidst the smoke and grime of Merthyr in the mid-19th century there sounded, on occasions, the lyricism of men like Sam Hughes. It was not just declamatory fanfares and scintillating chromatic runs that they played but gently turned phrases breathed softly above blocks of deep, sonorous harmony. Most brass band players lived and died where they were born. Sam Hughes died in poverty and a long way from home. The ophicleide died with him. There is a bitter irony in this story. Had he stayed in Merthyr he would have become Welsh. He would have died in comfort and security among people who admired him as one of their champions. Had he accepted the inevitable progress of technology and learned to play the euphonium he might even have died a rich man in London. He did neither.
Today Sam Hughes’s ophicleide rests in a glass case in Cyfarthfa Castle Museum. It is known throughout the world as one of the best surviving examples of its type. In the quest for authenticity, musicians are now learning to play the ophicleide again and clapped-out specimens are being lovingly restored. Hughes’ instrument plays as beautifully today as if the master had put it down just an hour ago.
The above is a much shortened version of an article which appeared in edition No.87 of Planet, The Welsh Internationalist.
The Cyfarthfa Band
by Laura Bray
I am sure many of you like me, have wandered around Cyfarthfa Museum, and glanced at the instruments on display – particularly the most intriguing “serpent” – and then moved on without a second thought. The Egyptian mummies were always so much more interesting. As a consequence, although I knew there had been a band, I knew nothing of it. Time to rectify that, my friends!
The Cyfarthfa Band was founded and sponsored by Robert Thompson Crawshay sometime in the 1840s, essentially as his private band. The band played when he had guests in Cyfarthfa, it accompanied him to trips to Aberystwyth and Tenby, where they played outside his hotel, probably to the bewilderment of the locals, and band members were expected to present in uniform at all times.
For much of its life, the band was conducted by the Livseys – father and son. The father, Ralph, was from Northumberland, and was a brilliant keyed bugle player, a skill probably acquired in a military band, as the keyed bugle was developed in this context. He became a soloist with Wombwell’s Travelling Circus and Menagerie, and would have been known to the Crawshays, as Merthyr was a regular venue on Wombwell’s circuit. Around 1846, Robert Crawshay made him an offer – come and lead my brass band – and Ralph accepted. His son, George, aged then 13 was also recruited as another keyed bugle player. Ralph took the band to new heights – while it remained a private band, Livsey persuaded Crawshay to equip it with expensive Viennese instruments (imported expressly through Crawshay’s London supplier), rather than the much cheaper British versions, and developed a repertoire of playing more orchestral music than was the traditional remit of the brass band.
As a private enterprise, the Cyfarthfa Band was not a competition band, and rarely entered such. However, one of the few competitions the band entered was the Crystal Palace national competition of 1860, in which it played Verdi’s “Nabucco”. The band came first on the second day’s contest, and Crawshay’s reputation as a man of culture and taste was cemented – through that, the band’s reputation grew. Its importance can be illustrated by the anecdote told of a time when Crawshay was laying off his workers as result of a downturn in demand. He had identified men working in the Boiler Shop who were to be dismissed. The foreman, Mr Jenkins looked at the list and told Crawshay, in no uncertain terms, that his selection would “take the guts from the band”. Nothing further was ever said.
Ralph Livsey died in 1863 and was succeeded by his son, George, who remained band master for most of the next 50 years. The band’s reputation was maintained, if not enhanced, under George’s leadership – it played in the Cardiff Flower Show for 18 years, and was chosen to play when the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) opened the Prince of Wales dock in Swansea in 1881.
It was George who introduced the band to some of more unusual instruments – including the Serpent (which brings us back to that showcase in the Museum today), an ophicleide – an instrument with a cello tone; and a valve trombone – so common now that we think nothing of it – but a novelty in the 1860s.
George conducted the band, trained its players, selected and arranged its repertoire and followed his father’s example of attracting some of the greatest brass instrumentalists of the day, such as the ophicleide player Sam Hughes, the greatest ever British virtuoso of the instrument. Indeed, the repertoire Livsey created survives, and because it is handwritten and bespoke it testifies to how, and not just to what, the band played. It was eclectic and included transcriptions of complete symphonies by Europe’s greatest composers and it was George’s boast that this was the only brass band to play all four movements of a Beethoven Symphony, a feat carried out in Cardiff to great acclaim. Such is testimony both to the remarkable virtuosity and skill of the band’s players and to the guidance and vision of a sophisticated musical director.
The last decade of the 19th century saw the band slowly decline. The Cyfarthfa works were losing orders as steel replaced iron, and by 1890 the works were being run by a skeleton staff. In addition there was more musical competition – Merthyr by this time could boast three military bands, seven brass bands and several orchestras – and the band quietly faded away, their instruments being put into storage.
But, my friends, this is not the end of the story, although it is the end of the glory days. Merthyr Council, who had acquired the Castle and grounds in 1908, decided that a band would be just the ticket, and so approached George Livsey to reform it as a municipal band. This duly happened in 1909 and the band was regularly heard playing in the Cyfarthfa and Thomastown bandstands over the next few years.
But George was now a man in his 70s, and so the band’s leadership fell first to a Mr Harvey and then to a Mr Laverock, who was its conductor during the dark days of 1914 -18. And so the band played on, until the Depression of 1926 finally sounded its death toll, as it did for most Merthyr bands, the exception being that of the Salvation Army Band which stands as witness to its heritage.
So next time you are in the Museum, stop at the case which houses the instruments and look up at the painting of George Livsey which hangs nearby – and remember the contribution made by the gentlemen of the Cyfarthfa Band, and wonder at the heights that were achieved by this band of ironworkers.
In Search of the Dowlais Railway
by Victoria Owens
When the Taff Vale Railway between Merthyr Tydfil and Cardiff received its authorisation in 1836, the Act gave the Railway Company leave to construct a branch to the tramroad at Dowlais. For various reasons, the Railway Company procrastinated over the work, with the result that the Dowlais Iron Company eventually took responsibility for making the Branch themselves. The terms of the 1849 Dowlais Railway Act authorised them to build not only the line, but also a passenger station, situated close both to the Iron Works’ lower entrance gate and the Merthyr-Abergavenny road.
Although the 1849 Act allowed the Iron Company five years to complete the railway, it was in fact ready in three. Financed by Sir John Guest, MP for Merthyr Tydfil, promoter of the TVR and soon to be sole partner in the Dowlais Iron Works, at a mile and sixty-eight chains in length, the steep gradient of its route up Twynyrodyn Hill meant that its lower part operated as an inclined plane. The Newcastle firm of R & A Hawthorn designed a stationary engine capable of drawing trains of up to six carriages in length and 33 tons in weight over s distance of 70 chains and 30 links, up the 1 in 12 slope. It had two horizontal cylinders of 18 inch diameter and 24 inch stroke and worked at 50 strokes per minute. The steam pressure was 30 lbs psi.
Viewing its erection in March 1851, a local newspaper drily enquired whether in ten years’ time, a ‘chronicler of local events’ might have reason to report the completion of a notional line ‘from Dowlais to the extreme point of Anglesey.’
Modest it might be, but at the Dowlais Railway’s official opening in August 1851, Royalty graced the ceremony. Three days before the event, just as Sir John and his wife Charlotte were about the set off on a carriage drive, the horse-omnibus drew up outside their home, Dowlais House, bringing Charlotte’s cousin Henry Layard, known as ‘Layard of Nineveh’ on the strength of his recent archaeological discoveries in Assyria, and with him, his friend Nawab Ekbaled Dowleh, whom the newspapers called the ‘ex-King of Oude.’
With the help of Works Manager John Evans, Charlotte organised every stage in the celebration, from welcoming a party of Taff Vale Directors who had travelled down from Cardiff for the occasion, to pairing up her ten children to walk in the procession: ‘viz. Ivor and Maria; Merthyr bach and Katherine; Montague and Enid; Geraint [Augustus] and Constance; Arthur and little Blanche.’ Flanked, probably as much for show as for protection, by the local police, they made their way to the station, decked with greenery for the occasion, with the school-children and company agents following. The ‘trade of Merthyr and Dowlais’ joined them along the way, all to the accompaniment of music from the combined bands of Cyfarthfa and Dowlais.
From Dowlais station, the passengers travelled to the top of the incline where their locomotive was uncoupled. Messrs. Hawthorn’s engine lowered the carriages down the slope, and the intrepid travellers made their way on to Merthyr. Some of them chose to continue by TVR to Abercynon, but the Guests and their visitors preferred to return to Dowlais.
Later in the day, a ‘small party comprising about five hundred ladies and gentlemen’ enjoyed a sumptuous meal at the Iron company’s Ivor Works, to be followed by speeches and dancing. Sir John, whose health was none too good, left the festivities early but Charlotte remained on hand to propose the healths the Directors of the Taff Vale railway and to open the dancing with Rhondda coal owner David William James as her partner. With Layard as his interpreter, the Nawab set the seal upon the day’s pleasures by expressing his delight at the hospitality that he had received in Dowlais and asserting that he had never enjoyed himself so much as he had during his ‘brief sojourn’ in Wales.
Although Sir John envisaged the Dowlais Branch primarily as a mineral line, he seems to have been perfectly happy with the requirement that it should also accommodate passenger traffic. Records indicate that over 1853,it came in for usage by 755 first class, 1884 second class and 7253 third class passengers but, sad to say, disaster struck at the end of the year. December 1853 witnessed an ugly accident when a passenger carriage over-ran the scotches to hurtle down the Incline unchecked and two passengers lost their lives, with five more suffering serious injuries. Officially speaking, passenger traffic on the railway ceased in 1854.
Unofficially, as Merthyr Tydfil writer Leo Davies would explain, it was usually possible – given a combination of unscrupulousness and agility- to obtain a lift. In an article of 1996, he described the whole unorthodox procedure in graphic detail. Access was obtained via the wingwall of a bridge and through some railings. The sound of the hawser gave advance warning of the approach of a train on the incline – ‘four ballast trucks, each half-filled with sand.’ Travelling typically at ‘a nice, sedate trotting pace’ there was evidently ample scope for the non-paying passenger to grasp the outside rim of the buffer, and ‘swing both legs up and around the buffer spring housing.’
The Dowlais Railway closed finally in 1930 and the trackbed would be filled in sixteen or so year later, over 1946-7. In the 1990s, when Leo Davies reminisced about the ‘Inky’ as he fondly calls it, the ‘straight, green, grass grown strip of land’ ascending Twynyrodyn Hill remained visible. Perhaps, with the eye of knowledge or faith it remains so. Admittedly, former pupils of Twynyrodyn School remember the old line’s route, but without local knowledge it is not easy to trace. Only a few yards of broad green path survive to mark the site – perhaps – of the old trackbed and the name ‘Incline Top’ given to a hamlet at the edge of a plateau of rough ground extending towards Dowlais and its great Ironworks commemorate the location of Sir John Guest’s last great enterprise.
The Temperance Hall
Most of us have passed, or even visited the Temperance Hall (or the Scala to those of you who were born after the 1960’s), but how many of you realise that it was in fact Merthyr’s first purposely built public meeting place?
The Temperance Hall was built by the Merthyr Temperance Society as somewhere to provide “instruction and amusement for the masses of the people”. The Temperance Movement began in the 1830’s. At first temperance usually involved a promise not to drink spirits and members continued to consume wine and beer. However, by the 1840s temperance societies began advocating teetotalism. This was a much stronger position as it not only included a pledge to abstain from all alcohol for life but also a promise not to provide it to others.
The Temperance Hall was opened in September 1852 by Henry Bruce, the M.P. for Merthyr. The original building measured approximately 80 foot by 40 foot, with a 12 foot wide platform, with a capacity of between 100 – 150 people.
In 1873, the Hall underwent major enlargement, was said to hold up to 4,000 people. For the next 20 years the Hall was the main theatre in Merthyr, mostly seeing off competition that came and went, from the Drill Hall, the short-lived Park Theatre and the many visiting portable theatres. Performances at the Temperance Hall ranged from musicals like “Les Cloches de Corneville” and the marionette spectacular “Bluebeard”, to performances of plays by Shakespeare and other leading dramatists.
As well these, the Hall was also used to host lectures and also religious and political meetings. One of the most famous of these was the meeting held in 1872 by Rose Mary Crawshay, one of the leaders of the Women’s Suffrage Movement in the late 1800’s, which led to a petition for Women’s Suffrage being sent to Westminster.
In 1885 the management was controlled by a group of four brothers: Charles, Joseph, George and Harry Poole who continued with the mixed policy, and encouraged local amateur groups to use the premises as their regular base. By the turn of the century, however, the Temperance Hall was gradually becoming a music-hall and variety theatre, with the touring productions of musicals and straight plays tending to go to the Theatre Royal.
By 1914, the Temperance Hall was listed in the Kinematograph Year Book, so it was clearly an early cinema conversion. The manager of the theatre by now was Mr Israel Price, who would become a legendary theatre manager of the South Wales area. From the outbreak of the War until the start of the “talkies” Israel Price provided variety performances and reviews as well as silent films. In 1927 he was able to advertise that the Temperance Hall was “now the only live theatre in the town”.
The Temperance Hall was renovated and re-seated in 1930 and re-opened in August of that year, promoting itself as “Now one of the most comfortable theatres in the provinces”.
In 1939, Israel Price’s son (also called Israel) took over the running of the Temperance Hall, and he also eventually took over the management of the Theatre Royal. The Hall seems to have been used almost exclusively as a cinema during the Second World War, but in the post-war years it resumed live theatre, and in 1948 ran a forty-week repertory season under the direction of Barney Lando.
By the 1953 edition of the Kinematograph Year Book the proprietors were listed as Messrs Price and Williams, and there were 624 seats, and by 1980 the Theatre had ceased presenting live shows and was used exclusively as a cinema having been renamed the Scala Cinema. It was owned by Dene Cinema Enterprises Ltd. and had 480 seats.
The cinema closed in the early 1980’s and in 1985 the building was converted into a bar and snooker club.
Whitsun in Merthyr
As today is Whitsun Monday, I thought it would be interesting to see how Merthyr celebrated Whitsun in time gone by. Here is an article about the Whitsun holiday 145 years ago transcribed from the edition of South Wales Daily News of 4 June 1873.
WHITSUN HOLIDAYS IN MERTHYR
The town of Merthyr presented quite a gay and holiday appearance on Monday. The streets were lined with people, all bent on pleasure, and wearing thoroughly holiday aspect. The Brecon and Merthyr and Great Western Railway Companies ran special trains, and at Dolygaer there was a picnic, where amusements of all kinds were provided.
Yesterday “all the world and his wife” went to Caerphilly to hear that now world-renowned Welsh choir, accompanied by that only less celebrated Cyfarthfa Band. It is to be regretted that the weather was so unfavourable as the threatening state of the sky in the morning had the effect of deterring many would-be visitors to the delightful old castle and grounds. But in spite of all this, the excursion trains on the Great Western were crowded. Every facility had been given of the most satisfactory arrangements made for a most enjoyable excursion.
There had been originally some difficulty with respect to the young people of Merthyr having a day’s holiday at all, but the tradesmen most generously gave a holiday. This must be looked upon as most handsome conduct, for in many instances the concession was made at a great sacrifice and personal inconvenience. It seems that in the first place there was a movement on foot for closing generally on Monday, being a bank holiday, but many of the tradespeople objected, and it was suggested that Tuesday would be more convenient. However, one of the principal firms in the town opposed this for business reasons, and there seemed a fair chance of there being no holiday at all. The firm was perfectly willing to have granted the Monday as a public holiday, but felt that considerable inconvenience would arise from closing on Tuesday, particularly as no previous notice had been given.
The representatives of the two daily papers received numerous complaints from all classes of shop-assistants, pointing out the hardships under which they were labouring – that while many towns were giving two days holiday and all the rest one – it seemed excessively unfair that in Merthyr there should be no holiday at all. Knowing the generosity of the Merthyr tradesmen generally on such points, the representatives of both the papers waited on the firm in question and explained the complaints which they had received. On the matter being placed before them in a true light, the heads of the firm at once, in the most handsome manner, signified their willingness to consider the point, although at great personal inconvenience. Upon this being made known to the rest of the employers, a general holiday was declared, and in the afternoon bills appeared in all the windows, “This establishment will be closed to-morrow, Whit-Tuesday.”
The movement was taken up by the leading firm of grocers, which resulted in its being followed by the ironmongers, stationers, and others, so that yesterday was a holiday in Merthyr, and although many did not, in consequence of the unfavourable weather, take advantage of the opportunity offered, there were many hundreds who did, and in fact the streets were as noticeable yesterday for their emptiness as they were on Monday for their crowds. But the people had a holiday, and it is to be hoped that they enjoyed themselves thoroughly.
Christ Church Cyfarthfa Bazaar
Form the Merthyr Times 120 years ago today……….
Merthyr Tydfil Flower Show
150 years ago today……..
A Grand Concert
150 years ago today…..
