Tag: Idloes Owen
Merthyr Historian Volume 32
What’s in the newly-launched 50th Anniversary volume of Merthyr Historian?
The answer is more than 450 pages about the history and communities and notable people linked with the lower end of our Borough.
It’s called Troedyrhiw Southward and Taff Bargoed. Glimpses of Histories and Communities.
This is what is in it …
FOREWORD: Lord Ted Rowlands
REGIONAL MAP
WELCOME TO OUR 50th ANNIVERSARY VOLUME
I. THE ROAD THAT RUNS THROUGH IT …
- Clive Thomas, ‘History, geography and the construction of the new A470 from Abercynon to Abercanaid’. A photographic account with commentary
II. PUBLIC HEALTH AND WELFARE
- Christine Trevett, ‘The Idiot of Cefn Fforest farm: learning disability, lunacy and the law in 17th century Merthyr parish’
- Transcription, ‘Visit to the Merthyr Sewage Farm’ (1872,South Wales Daily News)
- Huw Williams, ‘A North South divide and the Troedyrhiw Sewerage Farm: a case study in local history’
- Bleddyn Hancock, ‘Fighting for breath, fighting for justice: how a small Welsh Trade Union took on the British government on behalf of tens of thousands of coal miners suffering and dying from chest disease’
III. WAR, COMMEMORATION AND PEACEMAKING
- Eirlys Emery et al., ‘Treharris remembers – Treharris yn cofio: a recent community project to record the past’
- Gethin Matthews, ‘Honour to whom honour is due’: reports of First World War unveilings in the Merthyr Express, with special reference to those in the south of the Borough’
- Craig Owen, ‘Born of Bedlinog – the man who united nations. The Rev. Gwilym Davies, world peacemaker’
IV. COMMUNITIES AND PROJECTS
- Mansell Richards, ‘The Gateway to Merthyr Tydfil Heritage Plinths project’
- David Collier, ‘The Saron graveyard project, Troedyrhiw’
V. LOCAL POLITICS AND WORKERS’ EDUCATION
- Martin Wright, ‘Aspects of Socialism south of Merthyr and in Taff Bargoed in the 1890s: a window on Labour’s pre-history’
- Daryl Leeworthy, ‘Workers’ Education in the lower County Borough: a brief history of an enduring idea’
VI. BALLADMONGERS AND MUSIC MAKERS
- Stephen Brewer, ‘Idloes Owen, founder of Welsh National Opera’
- Alun Francis, ‘Getting your timing right at Glantaff Stores – and what happened next’
- Wyn James, ‘The Ballads of Troed -y-Rhiw’
VII. SPORT AND OUR COMMUNITIES
- Alun Morgan, ‘1950s football rivalry between Merthyr Town and the Troedyrhiw-Treharris clubs’
- Ivor Jones, ‘A community and its sport, a short history of Bedlinog Rugby Football Club’
VIII. THIS BOOK WOULD NOT BE COMPLETE WITHOUT …
- John Holley and T.Fred Holley, ‘Troedyrhiw Horticulture 1876 –’
IX. OUR HISTORICAL SOCIETY: SOME HISTORY
- Clive Thomas, ‘Before heritage began to matter. Only the beginnings’
- The Society’s Archivist: an interview
CONTENTS OF Merthyr Historian vols. 1-31 (1974-2021)
BIOGRAPHIES OF CONTRIBUTORS
Volume 32 of the Merthyr Historian is priced at £15. If anyone would like to purchase a copy, please get in touch with me at merthyr.history@gmail.com and I will pass on all orders.
Idloes Owen – another Merthyr Musical Giant
Everyone will know of the Welsh National Opera, but how many people know that its founder was yet another Merthyr boy – Idloes Owen.
Idloes Owen was born in Merthyr Vale in 1894. His parents Richard and Jane, originally from Llanidloes, moved to Merthyr Vale where Richard secured a job at the Nixon Navigation Colliery. Richard and Jane had six children – John, Thomas, Hannah, Mary, Idloes and Christmas.
As a child, Idloes took an interest in music and began studying the piano and violin, as well as being a promising boy soprano. At the age of 12 however, Idloes left school and followed his father into the Colliery. His time underground was short-lived as he contracted tuberculosis, and was forced to leave the pit. The enforced change in his circumstances made Idloes determined to pursue a career in music.
His ambitions were dealt another blow with the sudden death of his father, rendering the family unable to financially support Idloes’ music career. The villagers in Merthyr Vale, aware of Idloes’ talent and ambition, embarked on a series of fund-raising concerts to raise enough money for the young man to go to Cardiff University to study music.
Having graduated, Owen embarked on a career as a composer, arranger, teacher and conductor, and in 1925 he became the choirmaster of the Lyrian Singers in Cardiff. This male voice choir were able to take advantage not only of the demand for concerts, but also of the growing demands of radio, that had launched in Cardiff in 1922. The Lyrian Singers became, effectively, a resident BBC choir. He was soon also considered to be one of the finest singing teachers in Wales – one of his pupils was a budding baritone named Geraint Evans.
Musical life in Cardiff between the wars was largely amateur, with no public funding. An embryonic National Orchestra of Wales had foundered just before the outbreak of the Second World War and Owen’s plan, in the early years of the war, to launch an orchestra of his own were blocked by the prior existence of the Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra.
Strangely, the war years saw another even less known contribution by Owen to Welsh music. The credit for the popular song, We’ll Keep a Welcome in the Hillsides has always gone to Mai Jones, a musician who became a light entertainment producer with the BBC in 1941, but it was Owen who, in 1940, arranged the music from a score supplied by Thomas Morgan, a member of the Lyrian singers, set to lyrics written by Mai Jones and Lyn Joshua.
In November 1943 Owen met with John Morgan, a former baritone with the Carl Rosa Opera Company and Morgan’s fiancée, Helena Hughes Brown, where they decided to form a national opera company for Wales. Only days later, on 2 December, 28 people met at Cathays Methodist Chapel in Crwys Road, Cardiff, at which they all pledged a guinea and promised to pay sixpence a week to pay for the rental of a rehearsal rooms. This company – originally called the Lyrian Grand Opera Company before deciding on the name The Welsh National Opera Company, gave a number of concerts around Cardiff all the way through 1944 & 1945.
The company’s first full opera season took place in 1946 with the first performance on 15 April of Cavalleria Rusticana and I Pagliacci taking place at the Prince of Wales Theatre, with Idloes Owen as the conductor.
Idloes Owen continued as the musical director until his untimely death in 1954, but the company he started has gone from strength to strength, and is now considered one of the finest regional opera companies in the world.