Morfydd Llwyn Owen - Morfa Rhuddlan (1914)

Morfydd Llwyn Owen - Morfa Rhuddlan, tone poem for orchestra (1914)
Jac van Steen conducting the BBC National Orchestra of Wales
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Welsh tradition has always held that the great battle under Offa of Mercia and Caradoc is the one commemorated by the plaintive melody called "Morfa Rhuddlan," which has come down to us from a remote antiquity, but whose real origin is unknown. Nothing more pathetic exists in any language. It is the wail of a nation, faint and broken-hearted under a great disaster.
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The cry is heard - the long, loud wail,
O'er flood and plain, o'er hill and dale;
It is the heart of Cymru bleeds
For fallen sons and treacherous deeds;
Dismay dwells in Caradoc's halls;
The royal minstrel, doleful, calls
Forth from his harp a strain his own sad heart appals.
-D. Nicholas, Antiquities of Wales
- The composer's own description of the piece.
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Morfydd Llwyn Owen (1891-1918) was a Welsh composer, pianist, and mezzo-soprano. She was a musical prodigy who studied both at Cardiff University and the Royal Academy of Music, earning numerous awards and composing an enormous body of work over a brief and illustrious career. She was involved in collecting folksongs from various areas in Wales, culminating in the book "Folksongs Collected in Flintshire and the Vale of Clwyd." Her career was cut short by a medical error during a routine appendectomy; she died at the young age of 26.
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Recording: • MORFYDD OWEN: MORFA RH... and remastered by John Wallar)
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[@SouloftheTroll]

I am in tears. After 72 years of life I have just discovered this genius only to see that the world had lost her at 26 years of age by a medical error - just destroys me!!!! Such beautiful music from such a beautiful woman. God bless you Morfydd Llwyn Owen, God Bless You!

[@ElizabethPoet]

So magical to discover her! Thank you.

[@steveegallo3384]

Marvelous (unknown?) musical genius of Wales....BRAVA in Extremis!

[@Life-is-a-Dance]

This beautiful piece moves the heart of true Welshmen Diolch