Royal College of Music – The Melting Pot

E T Davies – Another Musical Giant

Evan Thomas Davies was born on 10 April 1878 at 41 Pontmorlais, Merthyr Tydfil. His father, George, was a barber, and owned a shop in South Street, Dowlais. The family was a musical one; George was precentor in Hermon Chapel, Dowlais, for nearly a quarter of a century, and his mother and his mother, Gwenllian (née Samuel) had a fine contralto voice. Evan was brought up in Dowlais, and he was given private tuition coming heavily under the influence of the famous local conductor and organist, Harry Evans. (see http://www.merthyr-history.com/?p=713)

At the age of sixteen, he passed the Advanced Honours Certificate of the Associated Board of the Royal Academy of Music and Royal College of Music. So successful was he in the exam that Sir Charles Villiers-Stanford, a renowned composer, and one of the founders of the Royal College of Music, persuaded him to pursue a musical career. The young Evan didn’t take his advice however, and took a job as an office clerk in Merthyr.

During this time however, he became the accompanist for both Harry Evans’ and Dan Davies’ choirs, and in 1898, he was asked to accompany a party of singers from Wales to the USA, and on his return, he finally decided to pursue a career in music. He soon was awarded the fellowship of the Royal College of Organists, and his reputation as an important musician in Merthyr was cemented during the first few years of the 1900’s performing several Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the Dowlais Operatic Society, and was acclaimed as the successor to Harry Evans as Merthyr’s foremost musician.

In 1903 he was appointed as organist at Pontmorlais Chapel, Merthyr Tydfil, and also became part-time singing teacher at the Merthyr County School. In 1904 he moved to Merthyr from Dowlais, and in 1906, when Harry Evans moved to Liverpool, E T Davies moved into his house ‘Cartrefle’, which housed a three-manual pipe organ.

After gaining his F.R.C.O. his services as a solo organist were in great demand, and he was said to have inaugurated about a hundred new organs in Wales and England. In 1920 he was appointed the first full-time director of music of the University College, Bangor, where he was responsible for numerous musical activities, and collaborated with (Henry) Walford Davies, Aberystwyth, to enhance knowledge of music in a wide area under the auspices of the university’s Council of Music. In 1943 he retired and moved to Aberdare, where he spent the rest of his life composing, adjudicating and broadcasting.

He first came into prominence as a composer after winning the first prize for ‘Ynys y Plant’ in the national eisteddfod held in London in 1909, and although he was not a very prolific composer, and tended to regard composing merely as a hobby, he had a beneficial influence upon Welsh music for more than half a century. Besides writing a few songs, he also composed part-songs, anthems and works for various musical instruments and instrumental groups, and about 40 of his tunes, chants and anthems are to be found in various collections of tunes.

He recognised the excellent work on folk-songs that John Lloyd Williams had done before him at Bangor, and he was one of the first Welsh musicians to find sufficient merit in the folk-songs to arrange them for voice or instrument. His arrangements of over a hundred of these songs, (many of them produced when the composer was in old age) have great artistic merit. He also took an interest in Welsh national songs, and was co-editor with Sydney Northcote of The National Songs of Wales (1959).

He married, 31 August 1916, Mary Llewellyn, youngest daughter of D.W. Jones, Aberdare. He died at home in Aberdare on Christmas Day 1969.

Maggie Davies – Eos Fach

Today marks the 93rd anniversary of the death of one of Merthyr’s greatest musical talents – Maggie Davies. Nowadays, however, she is almost totally forgotten.

Maggie Davies was born in Broad Street, Dowlais in November 1865. Her father, Evan, was a puddler at the Dowlais Works, and both he and his wife, Mary, were staunch members of Bethania Chapel, where Evan was a deacon. It was at Bethania Chapel that the young Maggie got her first rudimentary musical training, and was soon considered to be a prodigy, and her musical talents were often called upon around Dowlais.

After performing for two years with Brogden’s Swiss Choir, a famous touring group, Maggie returned to Merthyr for formal musical training with Edward Lawrence, the organist at St David’s Church. Under Lawrence’s tutelage, Maggie won a scholarship to study at the Royal College of Music in London. Before, her departure, the people of Dowlais organised a grand concert held at the Oddfellows Hall in her honour to raise money to help with her expenses.

At the Royal College of Music, she studied with Sir Hubert Parry and Sir Walter Parratt, and she also spent a season in Paris, studying with the world-renowned soprano Pauline Viardot. Such was Maggie’s talent and promise that the scholarship, which had been for a period of three years, was extended for a further three years, an unprecedented occurrence in that period.

Although she appeared for a season with the Carl Rosa Opera Company, it was as a concert singer that she made her name. She appeared regularly all over Britain, and sang annually at the National Eisteddfod, and it was here that she was christened ‘Eos Fach’ – Little Nightingale.

In 1896, the prominent composer Sir Charles Villiers Stanford asked Maggie to sing the lead role in the premiere of his new opera ‘Shamus O’Brien’, a role he had written specifically for her. At first she was reluctant to accept the offer, as she did not want to return to the operatic stage, much preferring her career as a concert and oratorio singer. She was finally persuaded to perform the role by the composer, and she received excellent reviews in most of the newspapers and periodicals of the time.

Although she occasionally performed in opera productions, notably in Joseph Parry’s operas ‘Blodwen’ and ‘Arianwen’ in Cardiff, she continued to confine her career mostly to the concert platform, and took part in concert tours to America and South Africa.

In 1903, she married George W Hutcheson, a Scottish solicitor residing in London, and retired from the concert stage.

By the 1920’s, ill-health had begun to take its toll on Maggie, and in 1925 she embarked on a voyage to the West Indies with a view to improving her health. Upon her return, however, her condition had worsened and she was admitted to a nursing home, where she died on 1 July 1925. In her funeral, the Rev H Elvet Lewis, in his prayer, referred to “the use the Creator had made of the gifts of her great art, which had brought joy to so many during her time”.

Harry Evans – A Musical Giant

Harry Evans was born on 1 May 1873 in Russell Street, Dowlais, the son of John Evans (Eos Myrddin), a local choirmaster and his wife Sarah. Harry had no formal musical training, but was taught the Tonic Sol-fa system by his sister; such was his prodigious musical talent however, that he was appointed organist of Gwernllwyn Chapel in Dowlais when he was only 9 years old. The elders of the chapel encouraged the young Harry and arranged for him to receive music lessons from Edward Laurence, Merthyr Tydfil.

In 1887 he was appointed organist of Bethania Chapel, Dowlais. He succeeded in passing all the local examinations of the Royal Academy and of the Royal College of Music, London, with honours. He was by that time anxious to devote himself entirely to music, but his father, who wished him to receive a more general education, obtained a post as pupil-teacher for him at the Abermorlais School; here he passed some South Kensington examinations in arithmetic, science, and art.

Although he passed the Queen’s Scholarship examination (for pupil-teachers), his health broke down and he was unable to proceed to a training college. In July 1893 he became A.R.C.O. (Associate of the Royal College of Organists), and from then on gave all his time to music.

An advert for Harry Evans’ services from an 1895 edition of The Merthyr Times

In 1898 Harry Evans formed a ladies’ choir at Merthyr Tydfil and a male choir at Dowlais. The male choir won the prize at the National Eisteddfod held at Liverpool in 1900; and when the National Eisteddfod came to Merthyr the following year, he conducted the Merthyr Tydfil Choir in a performance of Handel’s Israel in Egypt. Following a further success at the National Eisteddfod in Llanelli in 1903, Evans retired from competition and accepted an invitation to become conductor of the Liverpool Welsh Choral Union.

In 1913 he became musical director at Bangor University College and, in the same year, local conductor and registrar of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society. He also became, at this time, conductor of the North Staffordshire Choral Society. By this time many experts regarded him as the best choral conductor in the country, and he was invited to conduct Granville Bantock’s choral symphony, Vanity of Vanities, which the composer dedicated to him.

As well as his work as a conductor, Harry Evans was a one of the most well respected adjudicators at musical competitions, and he was much in demand in that capacity at musical festivals throughout the British Isles. Also a composer, his fullest compositions were Victory of St Garmon, produced at the Cardiff Festival in 1904, and also the cantata Dafydd ap Gwilym ; he also wrote several anthems and hymn-tunes, and arranged Welsh folk-songs and airs for choirs.

During 1914 Harry Evans’ health began to deteriorate, and his doctor advised complete rest, but it was soon discovered that he was suffering from a brain tumour. He underwent emergency surgery from which he never fully recovered, and on 23 July 1914 Harry Evans died and the tragically young age of 41. He was buried at the Toxteth Park Cemetery in Liverpool. After his death, a hymn-tune named In Memoriam was composed by Caradog Roberts in his memory and included in several Welsh hymnals.

Throughout his life Harry Evans’ main ambition was to establish a music college in Wales; had he lived he might have realized his ambition – the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama was established in 1949 as Cardiff College of Music at Cardiff Castle.