SIR IFOR, THE POET AND THE PROPHET

In 1936 three Welsh nationalists took direct action following the controversial demolition of a site of cultural importance for Wales to establish a 'bombing school'. They entered the site and set fire to a  shed. They then waited for the police to arrive to arrest them. One of these was the poet and dramatist Saunders Lewis. Following a failure by the jury at Caernarfon Crown Court to agree, the case was transferred to London and the three were imprisoned. Saunders Lewis was then dismissed from his post as a lecturer in Swansea University. In spite of a campaign within the University of Wales many of his fellow academics refused to sign a letter opposing his dismissal. The poet R Williams Parry was incensed and fired off the following sonnet.

JSL

Disgynnaist i'r grawn ar y buarth clyd o'th nen

Gan ddallu â'th liw y cywion oll a'r cywennod;

A chreaist yn nrysau'r clomendy uwch dy ben

Yr hen, hen gyffro a ddigwydd ymhlith colomennod.

Buost ffôl, O wrthodedig, ffôl; canys gwae

Aderyn heb gâr ac enaid digymar heb gefnydd;

Heb hanfod o'r un cynefin yng nghwr yr un cae -

Heb gorff o gyffelyb glai na Duw o'r un defnydd.

Ninnau barhawn i yfed yn ddoeth, weithiau de

Ac weithiau ddysg ym mhrynhawnol hedd ein stafelloedd;

Ac ar ein clyw clasurol ac ysbryd y lle

Ni thrystia na phwmp y llan na haearnbyrth celloedd.

Gan bwyll y bwytawn, o dafell i dafell betryal,

Yr academig dost.  Mwynha dithau'r grual.

Here is my translation :

From your heights you came down to the grain on the floor

Blinding with your light all the chicks and the chicklings;

Creating above your head in the dovecot doors

The twitter and flutter one expects among pigeons.

O idios - O forsaken fool; fie for the shame

Of a great, unloved bird winging its lonely way;

Hatched in a different field's corner not the same

God as ours rules over - shaped from a different clay.

As for us, we drink wisdom with cups of tea

And learned talk in the afternoon peace together;

We've an ear for the classics and a sense of place and can't see

That parish pumps or prisoners' cells could endeavour

To intrude on our taking of toast in grave squares

Of a sick academy.  Relish your prisoner's fare.

Some background to this: There is a barbed reference to afternoon tea and toast sessions held by Ifor Williams weekly at Bangor University. The word 'dost' in  "academig dost" can be read in Welsh as either meaning 'toast' or 'sick'. Williams Parry,  an occasional attender of these tea and toast afternoons, presumably includes himself among  those who comfortably sip tea while Saunders Lewis has prisoner's gruel. There is added layer of sarcastic wit here in the word "betryal". On the surface it means squares of toast. But Ifor Williams had, just a few years before, published his edition of Pedair Cainc y Mabinogi where he supplies a lengthy note on the words "bed petrual", referring to Branwen's grave, indicating that 'petryal' means square.  There are also references in the poem to the fact that Saunders Lewis was a catholic in a protestant culture and, in general, an unrepresentative representative of his people. Such is the nature and the fate of prophets.

Music of the Spheres

On my music player at the moment is Catrin Finch’s recent release of her transcription of Bach’s Goldberg Variations for harp. I already had different versions of these variations on a single theme along with Bach’s other keyboard works, mostly written as studies in counterpoint but now generally regarded as worthy of performance in their own right. So why would I buy another? Apart from the fact that Catrin Finch was brought up in the same village I used to live in, I was curious as to how this music would sound on the harp. Originally written with the harpsichord in mind, the keyboard pieces are generally performed today on piano, though The Art of the Fugue, with no instrument specified, also has a good modern representation for string quartet.

As well as being played straight, the pieces are often transcribed as with the renditions by Glenn Gould, hailed by some as brilliant and by others as eccentric. I have Gould’s Goldberg as well as his recordings of other pieces, my favourite being the Two- and Three-part Inventions, in spite of the fact that you can hear him humming along and speaking to the piano as he plays! Finch follows Gould in transcribing the Goldberg Variations for her instrument, allowing her to adapt performance to suit its peculiarities. This works well for some variations and less well for others. Have a listen to the Aria (You-Tube clip above) for sample of her playing.

So I’m glad to have added this to the range of Bach renditions in my collection. It remains to be seen how often it will return to my music player once I’ve adapted to the novelty of it. Those performances that do are the ones that, over time, seem to lead to greater depths of engagement with this very deep music. I listen to them for the way they unravel a complexity that never fully resolves itself. I once wrote:

The extraordinary run of a line
Through a Bach fugue
Keeping time in order
To keep an ordered time.

(more of this poem
here )


That they reach real depths that are hard to explain is a view shared by those who have much more musical knowledge than I. Glenn Gould said:

It is, in short, music which observes neither end nor beginning, music with neither real climax nor real resolution, music which, has unity through intuitive perception, unity born of craft and scrutiny, mellowed by mastery achieved, and revealed to us here, as so rarely in art, in the vision of subconscious design exulting upon a pinnacle of potency.

(original liner notes to his Goldberg Variations LP)

That’s a view I had formed for myself before reading those liner notes. Few other musical pieces get anywhere near this exploration of the music of the spheres, though some of Schubert’s piano works have a similar atmosphere of depth and engagement. These are grand claims and certainly not all artists realise them in their performances. Instant judgements are not useful in this respect, so I’ll wait on time to know if Finch’s journey from the opening aria to its restatement at the end gets anywhere near the best. For now - it's growing on me!