A Welsh Psalmody Festival

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

20-22

text excerpt

While other singing makes its appeal to the taste, this Welsh singing makes straight for the heart, and plays upon the spirit like the sound of storm or cataract. It calls up the class of emotions which we associate with the word ‘grand’…. This Welsh singing was in parts, and the exceptional power of the bass voices gave a richness to the harmony which nothing else can give. Our English choirs, both in church and out, are generally deficient in basses, and their singing sound in consequence thin and unsubstantial. These Welsh basses have voices that make the furniture vibrate as they sound, just as do the pedal stops of an organ. While they were singing, especially in the loud passages, I could see the sheet of paper I held in my hand tremble, and feel that the pen on which my hand rested was shaking too. One has often to complain in England that the organ drowns the voices of the congregation, but an organ amid singing of this kind would have a very small chance of being heard. The singing has, nevertheless, in some respects an organ-like effect. In our English psalmody the notes of three beats’ length which occur at the end of lines are generally cut short by the singers, but the Welsh have a way of not only holding them on, but swelling upon them and running them without break into the next line. Their capacious lungs seem to need no pause for breath. The soft passages are as impressive as the loud. It is only strong lungs that can sustain a rich, soft tone, a chorded murmur. I recall especially the long-drawn pianissimo at the close of a funeral anthem, sung in memory of a minister in the district who had died. The pure intonation, so different from the tempered chords of an organ, stole into the ear with perfect smoothness, and the sounds was like a wail of sorrow.

I have spoken of the Welsh as solid and grave in manner; but at these festivals they are often deeply moved. There is one custom which used to obtain among the Methodists in England, and which the Welsh still preserve. When the end of a hymn is reached, if the temper of the congregation is rising, some one will start the last four lines again, and they will be repeated with growing fervour three, four, six or even eight times. Then it is that the strong emotional nature of the Celt is stirred. Women sing with eyes fixed upon vacancy, wholly lost in spiritual ecstasy, the tears filling their eyes, the rocking to and fro of their bodies betraying the inward tension. The men, though they conceal it, are no less deeply touched. One feels the contagion of the excitement as the voices of the singers tremble with emotion. One of the hymns sung at this festival ended with the words,

"Love prevailing, love prevailing,
Conquers now the wrath Divine."

This is a close translation of the Welsh. Expressing the very essence of the Calvinistic faith, this couplet was sung over and over again, until the excitement was intense. Yet it found no unseemly vent. The singing became richer and richer in effect; no one screamed or gesticulated. Yet the air was charged with electricity. It is at times like this, that a foreigner, ignorant of the language he is hearing, feels that worship is not verbal, but spiritual, that words are a means only, and can be dispensed with. Communion in this way may be as real as if every word were understood

excerpt from 'A Welsh Psalmody Festival' pp. 20-22 (604 words)

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