Ar hyn of bryd mae'r cynnwys hwn ar gael yn Saesneg yn unig.
Ar hyn of bryd mae'r cynnwys hwn ar gael yn Saesneg yn unig.
Ar hyn of bryd mae'r cynnwys hwn ar gael yn Saesneg yn unig.
hyrwyddo a dathlu cerddoriaeth Cymru
promoting and celebrating the music of Wales
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Composer of the Month
Joseph Parry 1841-1903
Known as ‘Pencerdd America' (‘America's principal musician') and ‘Y Doctor Mawr' (‘The Great Doctor’), Joseph Parry was the preeminent figure of nineteenth century Welsh music.
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Born into a materially poor but culturally rich community in the epicentre of the Industrial Revolution, Parry overcame immense challenges to establish an enviable reputation on both sides of the Atlantic as a composer, performer, conductor, teacher, journalist and public speaker.
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Parry was a prolific writer of hymns and was the composer of the first Welsh language opera but is probably best known to present day audiences for his ever-popular song Myfanwy which celebrates its 150th anniversary this year.
Joseph Parry was born in Merthyr Tydfil in 1841 and was sent to work in the mines aged nine. At the time, Merthyr was important as an industrial powerhouse but also boasted a thriving musical life in which Parry took full part.
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In 1854 Parry emigrated with his family to Danville, Pennsylvania where he worked in the rolling mills. He continued his musical studies alongside fellow members of the Welsh emigre community and his success as a composer in local eisteddfodau and later with pieces he submitted by post to the National Eisteddfod in Wales, prompted the Welsh communities in America to fund three years of study at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Parry returned to Pennsylvania to run his own music college but in 1874 accepted an invitation to become the first Professor of Music at the recently opened University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. He moved to Swansea to take up the position of organist at Ebenezer Chapel and to set up his own music college before accepting a lectureship at the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire (now Cardiff University) – a post which he continued to hold until his death.
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Parry was the complete all-round musician and during his lifetime, his reputation was unassailable. His more ambitious works, such as his opera Blodwen (1878) and oratorios Emmanuel (1880) and Saul (1892) placed Welsh music firmly on the British and international stage. Joseph Parry’s name though is immortalised in the great Welsh hymn-tune Aberystwyth and possibly the greatest of all Welsh part-songs, Myfanwy, which effortlessly evokes the Wales of the mining valleys, the non-conformist chapels and its great male voice tradition.
​​​▶ Joseph Parry, Hymn Tune Writer​​​
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​​​▶ Tŷ Cerdd Shop: Joseph Parry sheet music
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​​​▶ Composer of the Month​​
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Few pieces of music evoke the Wales of the mining valleys, the non-conformist chapels and the great male voice choir tradition than Joseph Parry's Myfanwy. It is an image of Wales immortalised in Richard Llewellyn's How Green Was My Valley and, to a certain extent, in Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood.
Myfanwy, composed in 1875 to words by Richard Davies, was inspired by the fourteenth century tale of Myfanwy Fychan of Castell Dinas Brân, Llangollen, and the poet Hywel ab Einion.
Read Frank Bott's essay about Joseph Parry's extensive output of hymn tunes
Parry composed the first Welsh language opera, Blodwen in 1878.