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Lost Hymns

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Manage episode 423855334 series 1301555
Content provided by BBC and BBC Radio Wales. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by BBC and BBC Radio Wales or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://player.fm/legal.

Azim Ahmed and guests shine a light on a collection of ‘Lost Hymns’; long forgotten Welsh-language folk hymns recorded by oral historians at St. Fagan’s National Museum of History in the 1960s.

When musician and composer Lleuwen Steffan came across these recordings she immediately realised that they were no longer featured in contemporary hymn books. She embarked on a decade long project to track down the descendants of those recorded, and to compose music inspired by these songs. Today she brings these recordings to modern audiences, joining the recorded voices with her own compositions on piano, guitars and synthesizers.

Many of the hymns were composed as a response to the Welsh Revival of 1904, a period of intense religious fervour that swept across Wales, filling chapels, and bringing life-changing religious experiences to those part of the revivals. The songs are frank, down to earth and sometimes dark. They reflect the fragility of human experience.

Emeritus Professor Wyn James, a Welsh hymnology expert from the School of Welsh at Cardiff University sets out the historical context of these hymns. Catrin Roberts, the granddaughter of hymn collector William Morris (one of the voices in the collection) shares memories of her grandfather, and his passion for the heritage of Wales.

Lleuwen’s work is made in partnership with Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Cymru and supported by the British Council Wales.

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289 episodes

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Lost Hymns

All Things Considered

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Manage episode 423855334 series 1301555
Content provided by BBC and BBC Radio Wales. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by BBC and BBC Radio Wales or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://player.fm/legal.

Azim Ahmed and guests shine a light on a collection of ‘Lost Hymns’; long forgotten Welsh-language folk hymns recorded by oral historians at St. Fagan’s National Museum of History in the 1960s.

When musician and composer Lleuwen Steffan came across these recordings she immediately realised that they were no longer featured in contemporary hymn books. She embarked on a decade long project to track down the descendants of those recorded, and to compose music inspired by these songs. Today she brings these recordings to modern audiences, joining the recorded voices with her own compositions on piano, guitars and synthesizers.

Many of the hymns were composed as a response to the Welsh Revival of 1904, a period of intense religious fervour that swept across Wales, filling chapels, and bringing life-changing religious experiences to those part of the revivals. The songs are frank, down to earth and sometimes dark. They reflect the fragility of human experience.

Emeritus Professor Wyn James, a Welsh hymnology expert from the School of Welsh at Cardiff University sets out the historical context of these hymns. Catrin Roberts, the granddaughter of hymn collector William Morris (one of the voices in the collection) shares memories of her grandfather, and his passion for the heritage of Wales.

Lleuwen’s work is made in partnership with Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Cymru and supported by the British Council Wales.

  continue reading

289 episodes

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