Name: Harry, Edward-Rhys: What Sustains the World? (choir and piano version)
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Harry, Edward-Rhys: What Sustains the World? (choir and piano version)

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As an undergraduate student at the University of Bangor, North Wales, I elected to study Welsh and Welsh literature in addition to my music degree. As part of the curriculum I studied Pedair Ceinc Y Mabinogi - The Four Branches of The Mabinogion – a set of important Welsh folk tales. With tutor Meinir Pearce Jones, I studied the manuscripts in their original Middle Welsh – that is, how they were recorded in the written Welsh of the Middle Ages. This sparked a life-long love of Welsh literature, particularly ancient literature in a Welsh language that is no longer spoken (much like Middle English).

‘What sustains the world?’ is a question asked by Taliesin the early Brittonic poet of sub-Roman Britain whose work has survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the Book of Taliesin. This book contains writing from (possibly) as early as the 6th century. It should be noted that the first written mention of Taliesin is in the book Historia Brittonum from 828AD.

Setting poem 26 from the Book of Taliesin ‘Kanu Y Byt Bychan’ was an opportunity I have been waiting for as I was always determined to set it in the original Middle Welsh. In this work it is the text for the soprano solo, with occasional choral interludes.

In order that the work should be accessible to all, I have quasi-translated the words of Taliesin into English, whilst all other texts are presented here in Welsh and in English, that the work may be performed in either language, or both or a combination thereof.

Coupling the words of Taliesin with David’s hymn of praise (Psalm 9, Old Testament) and the words of William Williams (Pantycelyn) – 1717 – 1791 – one of the greatest and most renowned of the Welsh ministers and hymnodists, whose words continue to affect readers around the world even today, was, for this composer, an important tying together of historic literature from 2 periods in Wales, with the powerful imagery and soul-felt words of the Old Testament, all brought together to ask, what is today, a provocative question: What Sustains The World? And what would happen if that sustenance ever disappeared?

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