Music

A particularly strong part of the popular culture of the valleys was a love for music and especially for participation in the making of music. Perhaps choirs more than anything else have earned Wales her reputation as 'the land of song' and mass choirs became part of people's lives. The growth of this choral tradition dates back to the 1870s. In 1872 and 73 the famous 'Cor Mawr' won choral competitions held at Crystal Palace, London, under their conductor Griffith R. Jones (Caradog), a colliery blacksmith from Aberdare. In the Rhondda the Treorchy Male Voice Choir and the Rhondda Glee Society were the two great choirs which grew up.

Brass and Silver Bands became just as famous. In the Rhondda the Parc and Dare Band (based at Treorchy) and the Cory Band (based at Pentre) became, and have remained, the two great names. All over South Wales, Colliery Companies, individual Coal owners, Friendly Societies, Chapels and Miners' Unions, helped Bands to form.

The Tonic Solfa system helped the members of Choirs, Bands, Opera Societies and Orchestras to read music. Thousands of people learned music through this and two other indications of this passion for music in valley communities were the pianos so often to be found in miners' homes and the naming of sons Haydn, Handel etc., after great composers of that name.

The Eisteddfod

The competitions in which these bands and choirs participated were often ones organised by the Eisteddfod movement. The Eisteddfod had its roots deep in Welsh history but it was in the 1820s that it was revived and by the end of the 19th century it was a form of mass popular entertainment in most of Wales The National Eisteddfod was revived in 1858 and with the coming of the railways people flocked to the National and the other large eisteddfodau (known as semi-nationals) to support their local choirs, poets and writers. The standard Of literature in these competitions was not necessarily very high, but the opportunity they gave to ordinary people to express and enjoy themselves was perhaps the important thing about them. It was not at national or semi-national level that the Eisteddfod movement was at its strongest, however, for in most valley communities hardly a week would pass without a Church, Chapel, Friendly Society or sores other organisation, holding a local Eisteddfod.