minstrel: Ap Huw and Welsh Harp Music

[yarrowp at mscd.edu]

Tangwystyl wrote:
>Here I'm going to have to confess that I'm not as intimately familiar with
>the music itself -- both in terms of learning the pieces and of reading up
>on all the background -- as I should be. To me, there appear to be three
>general groupings in the music: the "24 measures", the "Gosteg"s, and the
>other named tunes (generally including either the word "caniad" or
>"profiad" in the title, but I haven't figured out if there's a systematic
>difference between the two). Of these, those named "Gosteg" (probably best
>translated "processional", although that's a functional rather than
>literal translation) feel the most "melodic" to me, in the sense of having
>a "melody line" that goes beyond repeated patterns on the chords. Some of
>the other "named tunes" lean towards this style as well, others lean more
>towards the "24 measures" style. But one interpretation is that the "24
>measures" style was _intended_ as accompaniment to unrecorded tunes,
>rather than being the full tunes themselves.

>Tangwystyl

I'm not intimately familiar with all the pieces in ap Huw (yet ;-) ), but I 
would say that the ones labeled "gosteg" tend more toward the clymmau 
cytgerdd style of formulaic variation than do the ones labeled either 
"profiad" or "caniad."  (The clymmau cytgerdd are the variations on the 24 
mesur structures.) 
The profiadau are the ones that admit more than two chords into their 
structure, and tend to be much shorter and more melodic than the others.  
(Robin Huw Bowen has recorded a couple of these, and Alan Stivell tucked a 
couple into his ap Huw/Penlyn section of "Renaissance of the Celtic Harp.") 
 The profiadau have programmatic names, such as the one named for the 
nightingale's song, which evidently tries to translate birdsong into harp 
music.  There are only a few profiadau in ap Huw.

The caniadau I've seen/heard appear to be in the lament genre, and are 
named for people (as are some of the gosteg type, though others are named 
for things - see "Gosteg yr Halen," the gosteg of the salt).  I've found 
them to be in variations format, but with less formulaic variations than 
the gostegiau (is that the correct plural?).  

There is also a shorter type, theme with no variations, known as a "ceinc," 
which means essentially "theme" or "branch."  The main theme of a 
variations piece is also known as the ceinc.  I'm not sure how many fall 
into this category; the only one that comes to mind bears a person's name, 
and is rather march-like.

Hope this is helpful rather than confusing.

Vivien


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