ABSTRACT
J.
Marshall Bevil,
"The
Welsh Crwth, Its History, and Its Genealogy"
M.Mus.-Musicology
thesis, University of North Texas, 1973. Text with companion audio tape. 249
pp., photographic plates, diagrams and charts, tables, written and recorded
musical examples. Running supplement, "Errata and Addenda," issued by author,
1974-1980. Known locations of copies: author; Music Library, University of North
Texas; Welsh Folk Museum, Sain Ffagan, Glams., U.K.; Warrington Museum,
Warrington, Lancs., U.K.; U.S. Library of Congress.
This
investigation was undertaken to help clarify the place of the crwth both within
the culture of
western
Britain and in the history of the European bowed chordophone. It also represents
an effort to reconstruct a body of performance techniques whose traces were lost
with the demise of regional folk musical practices following the early
eighteenth century.
Any
inquiry concerning an instrument is certain to be difficult when that instrument
is extinct in common practice; when little if any music was ever written for it;
when comprehensive treatises by knowledgeable performers of the instrument's
heyday are not to be found; and when there are no extensive, non-condescending,
genuinely knowledgeable treatments by academic writers of the period in
question. Cultural isolation, linguistic esotericism, frequent ambiguity of
nomenclature, and a generally unclear picture of the bowed yoke lyre's position
in the history of string instruments make in-depth inquiries concerning the
crwth even thornier than most others of their kind.
The
1973 study, with its ongoing revisions and related research, eliminates some of
the confusion which has arisen as a result of the unusually complex web of often
spotty evidence. The monograph is designed to inform not only organologists but
also those in other branches of musicology and related historical and
anthropological disciplines. Hence there is within it some repetition of common
organological knowledge. Both between and within those blocks of information,
however, are items of fact, theory, and hypothesis that, at the time of their
writing and to the best of the author’s knowledge, had not been advanced
previously.
Crwth
is a generic term denoting several small lyres that flourished in western
Britain from the eleventh through early nineteenth centuries. From near the end
of that period to some decades thereafter, it may have been used occasionally in
reference to the violin and its close kin. The most common English cognates are
crowd and crowth, hence the surnames
Crowder and Crowther that meant fiddler. The
Scottish
and Scots-Irish equivalent surnames are, respectively, MacWhorter and McWhorter (also MacWhirter,
McWhirter; MacWherter, McWherter). The Irish cognate of crwth is cruit, but that term also may
have been applied to certain harps in some cases. It is
important
to remember that neither crwth nor its many cognates,
partial-cognates, and synonyms necessarily indicate any one particular
instrument. Specific denotation depended on time, exact locale, and, in some
instances, specific individual.
The
most recent, or modern, crwth, which is the focus of this study, seems to have
been peculiar to Wales and to have flourished ca. 1500-1730, and thence in rapidly
decreasing numbers until perhaps as late as 1855 when, according to oral
accounts, the last of the old players died. The modern crwth had four bowed
strings traversing a flat fingerboard and an obliquely situated,
almost
flat, bridge. Two drone strings were drawn over the bridge and to the
observer's-left side of the
fingerboard,
where they were plucked by the player's left thumb. It seems that some players
held the instrument with its lower end either at the shoulder or against the
upper chest. Evidently others held it obliquely across the body, either with its
lower end resting on the lap or knees or with the instrument suspended from the
neck by a strap.
The
modern crwth was one of the last of the bowed yoke lyres, a genre that probably
emerged in southern and central Europe when the bow, an Eastern incursion, was
applied experimentally to pre-existing plucked lyres of probable European
origin, beginning about AD 900-1000. The parallel developments of the viol and
violin began when the bow was applied in like manner to lyres with
Middle-Eastern roots. Rather than evolving along a single line, the bowed yoke
lyre repeatedly split into
varied
designs, due in great measure to its having been subjected to much
experimentation, structural variance, and disparity of playing technique from
one geographic region and culture to another. For that reason, the bowed lyre
never realized either the structural standardization or the standardization of
performance methodology experienced by the more academic viol and violin
families, and it ultimately became extinct in common practice as regional folk
traditions either died out or were absorbed into the pan-European art music
tradition.
One
branch of bowed yoke lyres came to be equipped with drones. The first attempts
to employ that feature, which distinguishes the modern crwth and its immediate
prototype from earlier progenitors, seem to date from around the twelfth
century; but they do not appear to have become firmly established until the
middle to late fourteenth century.
The
immediate prototype of the modern crwth was known not only in Britain (crowd and probably crwth) but also on the
Continent, where it appears to have emerged. There it was called chrotta, crotta, and rotta. That instrument
eventually was confined to Wales and portions of the English West Country
following the dissolution of minstrelsy. It was gradually absorbed into the folk
culture along with some of the music, performance practices, and other
instruments of the minstrels. It ultimately disappeared from the English
counties, and it was replaced in Wales by the modern crwth. That instrument
differs from its immediate ancestor in having anterior rather than posterior
wrest pins, a straight or nearly straight (rather than distinctly rounded) lower
end, and an obliquely-positioned bridge instead of one situated horizontally
across the soundboard. Those changes may have emerged as non-academic methods of
tuning, holding, and bowing were adopted by folk musicians. Other features, such
as the drones and the long bridge leg that goes through a soundhole and contacts
the back of the resonator, were found on the prototype. While many, if not most,
of the modern crwth's predecessors were instruments of the minstrels, the
function of the modern instrument was that of a fiddle at country dances. There
it sometimes was played with the pibgorn, a capped-reed aerophone with, in many
instances, a barrel made from the shinbone of a ram and a bell fashioned from a
bovine antler. In some situations, the harp, or telyn, also was a
member of the ensemble.
Both
the music of the crwth and the way of playing the instrument were handed down
from father to son. One likely consequence of that was the emergence of varied
methods of holding,
bowing, bow design, and tuning.
Evidence of variance in tuning is particularly clear and significant. Tuning in
paired fifths, in a way similar to a more modern fiddle tuning, has been viewed
as anomalous. However, prevailing fiddling practice and the likelihood of many
earlier lyres having been tuned in octaves with central fifths above the root
suggest that the crwth tuning in paired fifths may have been preferred over a
more widely
publicized
tuning in paired seconds. Further, experimentation has shown that a crwth tuned
in paired fifths is more facile, particularly from a melodic standpoint, than
has been assumed heretofore.
LINK TO THESIS BIBLIOGRAPHY AND OTHER REFERENCES LINK TO OTHER CRWTH-RELATED PAGES AT THIS WEB SITE
©
1997, 2004 J. Marshall Bevil
All Rights Reserved
Dr.
J. Marshall Bevil is a native of
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