| Letter from Wales - Llythyr gan Cymru* |
|
Although I left Wales just after my 7th birthday, I still retain an affection for it. For me, the character of Wales is reflected in its music, where the minor key predominates. If one had to define the sound of the minor key, it could perhaps be described as the subjunctive mood of music. It enables the expression of doubt, hope, fear and wishing more easily than the more optimistic and direct major key. It is particularly appropriate, therefore, that the ‘Cardiff Singer of the World' competition is held there. Budding opera singers from around the globe gather there for a week of heats to try to win the most coveted prize in the opera world. Sunday, marked the climax of this year's competition when a 26 year old American soprano carried all before her. Of course the Welsh were originally the English. But when the Roman occupation collapsed and the Anglo-Saxons invaded, many of the English took refuge in the far reaches of what we now know as Wales. Wales as a country evolved from a wild tribal region, into a semi-autonomous principality, but the last ruler ‘Llewellyn the Last' was defeated by Edward I who then embedded his presence in Wales with the building of a dozen or so castles, all with the help of a renowned Savoyard castle builder. Wales revenged this defeat by putting its own man (Henry Tudor) on the English throne as Henry VII. Since then we seem to have lost interest in real autonomy. There has though been a resurgence of interest in the Welsh language, supported by the requirement that everything official in Wales be in Welsh as well as English. How much this costs, I have no idea, but it keeps many people employed in translating and printing everything from instructions on when to put out the bins to theatre programmes. My cousin, who was an accountant employed by the Welsh Arts Council, told me that the main problem with this was the delay in getting translations done. No-one wanted to commit themselves in the arts world just in case someone-else from the ‘Taffia' (the movers and shakers who spoke Welsh) thought they had not found quite the required shade of meaning At present, the most well-known living Welsh people are probably the actors Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta Jones, the singer Tom Jones, the Archbishop of Canterbury and for the tabloids, another singer and wearer of low-cut dresses, Charlotte Church. But the most revered literary figure for many people is Dylan Thomas who died in 1954 of drink at the age of 39, not though before he had penned some wonderful works of prose and poetry. The most famous of these is his ‘play for voices' called ‘Under Milk Wood' first broadcast on the radio in 1953. It conjures up, as if partly in a dream, Llareggyb - a small Welsh village (said to be based on Laugharne near Swansea) - with all its foibles, secrets and goings on. Amonst many others it has Polly Garter ‘who is no better than she ought to be', the twice widowed, house-proud Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard who demands that ‘the sun wipe its shoes before coming in', and the love, but only ever by correspondence, between Myfanwy Price and Mog Edwards who are shopkeepers in the same street. It is magnificent.
*Incidentally, I don't speak any Welsh. The translation came from a translation web site. |