The Cyfarthfa Band

by Laura Bray

I am sure many of you like me, have wandered around Cyfarthfa Museum, and glanced at the instruments on display – particularly the most intriguing “serpent” – and then moved on without a second thought.  The Egyptian mummies were always so much more interesting. As a consequence, although I knew there had been a band, I knew nothing of it. Time to rectify that, my friends!

The Cyfarthfa Band was founded and sponsored by Robert Thompson Crawshay sometime in the 1840s, essentially as his private band. The band played when he had guests in Cyfarthfa, it accompanied him to trips to Aberystwyth and Tenby, where they played outside his hotel, probably to the bewilderment of the locals, and band members were expected to present in uniform at all times.

For much of its life, the band was conducted by the Livseys – father and son. The father, Ralph, was from Northumberland, and was a brilliant keyed bugle player, a skill probably acquired in a military band, as the keyed bugle was developed in this context. He became a soloist with Wombwell’s Travelling Circus and Menagerie, and would have been known to the Crawshays, as Merthyr was a regular venue on Wombwell’s circuit. Around 1846, Robert Crawshay made him an offer – come and lead my brass band – and Ralph accepted. His son, George, aged then 13 was also recruited as another keyed bugle player.  Ralph took the band to new heights – while it remained a private band, Livsey persuaded Crawshay to equip it with expensive Viennese instruments (imported expressly through Crawshay’s London supplier), rather than the much cheaper British versions, and developed a repertoire of playing more orchestral music than was the traditional remit of the brass band.

As a private enterprise, the Cyfarthfa Band was not a competition band, and rarely entered such. However, one of the few competitions the band entered was the Crystal Palace national competition of 1860, in which it played Verdi’s “Nabucco”. The band came first on the second day’s contest, and Crawshay’s reputation as a man of culture and taste was cemented – through that, the band’s reputation grew. Its importance can be illustrated by the anecdote told of a time when Crawshay was laying off his workers as result of a downturn in demand. He had identified men working in the Boiler Shop who were to be dismissed. The foreman, Mr Jenkins looked at the list and told Crawshay, in no uncertain terms, that his selection would “take the guts from the band”.  Nothing further was ever said.

Ralph Livsey died in 1863 and was succeeded by his son, George, who remained band master for most of the next 50 years. The band’s reputation was maintained, if not enhanced, under George’s leadership – it played in the Cardiff Flower Show for 18 years, and was chosen to play when the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) opened the Prince of Wales dock in Swansea in 1881.

It was George who introduced the band to some of more unusual instruments – including the Serpent (which brings us back to that showcase in the Museum today), an ophicleide – an instrument with a cello tone; and a valve trombone – so common now that we think nothing of it – but a novelty in the 1860s.

George conducted the band, trained its players, selected and arranged its repertoire and followed his father’s example of attracting some of the greatest brass instrumentalists of the day, such as the ophicleide player Sam Hughes, the greatest ever British virtuoso of the instrument. Indeed, the repertoire Livsey created survives, and because it is handwritten and bespoke it testifies to how, and not just to what, the band played. It was eclectic and included transcriptions of complete symphonies by Europe’s greatest composers and it was George’s boast that this was the only brass band to play all four movements of a Beethoven Symphony, a feat carried out in Cardiff to great acclaim. Such is testimony both to the remarkable virtuosity and skill of the band’s players and to the guidance and vision of a sophisticated musical director.

The last decade of the 19th century saw the band slowly decline. The Cyfarthfa works were losing orders as steel replaced iron, and by 1890 the works were being run by a skeleton staff. In addition there was more musical competition – Merthyr by this time could boast three military bands, seven brass bands and several orchestras – and the band quietly faded away, their instruments being put into storage.

But, my friends, this is not the end of the story, although it is the end of the glory days. Merthyr Council, who had acquired the Castle and grounds in 1908, decided that a band would be just the ticket, and so approached George Livsey to reform it as a municipal band. This duly happened in 1909 and the band was regularly heard playing in the Cyfarthfa and Thomastown bandstands over the next few years.

But George was now a man in his 70s, and so the band’s leadership fell first to a Mr Harvey and then to a Mr Laverock, who was its conductor during the dark days of 1914 -18. And so the band played on, until the Depression of 1926 finally sounded its death toll, as it did for most Merthyr bands, the exception being that of the Salvation Army Band which stands as witness to its heritage.

So next time you are in the Museum, stop at the case which houses the instruments and look up at the painting of George Livsey which hangs nearby – and remember the contribution made by the gentlemen of the Cyfarthfa Band, and wonder at the heights that were achieved by this band of ironworkers.