City in Wales. During the 19th and 20th centuries Cardiff grew from a comparatively small industrial port into the largest city and the administrative capital of Wales. Increased size and prosperity provided a spur to artistic activity, but Cardiff's present importance as a musical centre is largely the result of developments that took place since World War II.
There is evidence that a choir school existed at Llandaff (now a Cardiff suburb) as early as the 9th century; the present school was founded by Dean Vaughan in 1880 and is the only surviving choir school in Wales. The cathedral's four-manual organ, built by Hill, Norman & Beard in 1958, incorporates some earlier pipework by Hope-Jones and Norman & Beard. In the absence of an adequate concert hall in Cardiff, the cathedral itself acted for many years as an important venue for choral and orchestral concerts, but this function was largely relinquished when the St David's Hall, in the city centre, was opened in 1982. This, the city's first purpose-built concert hall, seats 2000 and is provided with a four-manual organ designed by Ralph Downes and built by Peter Collins.
The Welsh National Opera (WNO), founded in 1946, puts on regular seasons each year at the New Theatre, and also plays in other towns in Wales and England. Its early reputation was built largely on a series of Verdi operas which included several early and little-known works and capitalized on the strength of the company's chorus. The late 1960s and early 1970s brought many changes, including the establishment of a fully professional chorus and orchestra to replace the amateur chorus and visiting orchestras that had been employed until then. The productions of the 1970s were largely shaped by Michael Geliot, who was responsible for, among other things, the first production by a British company of Berg's Lulu in 1971 – a milestone in the WNO's history. The much praised performance was conducted by James Lockhart, musical director from 1968 to 1973. Lockhart's successor, Richard Armstrong, extended the company's reputation in 20th-century opera, notably with the staging of five Janáček works directed by David Pountney between 1976 and 1982. After Geliot's resignation in 1978, Brian McMaster (general administrator, 1976–91) followed a policy of engaging innovatory directors for particular projects. Harry Kupfer's Elektra (1978), Andrei Serban's Yevgeny Onegin (1980) and Göran Järvefelt's Ring cycle (1983–5) were among the most notable successes. The company has always concentrated on the international repertory, but new operas by Welsh composers (including Hoddinott, Mathias and Grace Williams) have been produced, and the company has done much to train and encourage Welsh singers.
Orchestral societies have existed in Cardiff since at least 1863, but their activities have been mostly amateur and short-lived. The Herbert Ware SO (renamed the Cardiff PO in about 1932) was founded in 1918 and gave some notable concerts, including some conducted by Wood, Harty, Beecham and Sargent. The orchestra was disbanded in 1953, two years before the death of its founder and chief conductor, Herbert Ware. Apart from the WNO's orchestra, the only full-time professional orchestra now in existence in Cardiff (and, indeed, in the principality) is the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. This was founded in 1936 as the BBC Welsh Orchestra and reconstituted with about 40 players in 1946. As a result of collaboration between the BBC and the Welsh Arts Council, the orchestra's size increased from 44 (in 1972) to full symphonic strength. As well as broadcasting, the orchestra appears regularly at public concerts and festivals in Cardiff and elsewhere.
Choral societies have been more numerous and, on the whole, more prosperous. The Cardiff Municipal Choir was formed in 1942 and disbanded in 1974. Choirs still in existence include the Cardiff Bach Choir, formed in 1962 and run under the auspices of the university's extra-mural department, the Cardiff Polyphonic Choir (1964) and the Llandaff Cathedral Choral Society, which began in 1938 as the Llandaff Cathedral Special Choir and adopted its present title in 1960. The last two choirs have been particularly active in promoting works by Welsh composers.
The Cardiff Music Club arranged some important celebrity recitals between 1951 and 1970, when it was disbanded. For almost 70 years the University Ensemble, inaugurated as a piano trio by Sir Walford Davies in 1920 and expanded to five players (string quartet and piano) in 1946, gave a valuable series of public recitals during the autumn and spring terms, and the university has remained a major promoter of chamber music in the city. The Welsh Arts Council, with its headquarters in Cardiff, has given financial support to nearly all the activities so far mentioned, and has also arranged its own concerts by visiting orchestras and soloists.
A triennial music festival, following the pattern of those at Leeds and Birmingham, was inaugurated at Cardiff in 1892 and continued until 1910.
The Llandaff Festival, centred on the cathedral, was inaugurated in 1958 to bring orchestras and musicians to south Wales from elsewhere in Britain and abroad. It continued its existence until 1986, and in most years commissioned a work of major proportions by a Welsh composer. From 1967 until his retirement in 1987, the university's professor of music, Alun Hoddinott, directed an annual festival which projected many important contemporary works (including several new ones) against a background of well-known classics. Less ambitious festivals in the Cardiff area include those at Caerphilly (since 1962), Lower Machen (since 1968) and the Vale of Glamorgan (since 1969).
The chair of music at University College was established in 1910 and first held by David Evans; the department is now by far the largest in Wales, and one of the largest in Britain. The Welsh College of Music and Drama, situated at first in Cardiff Castle but transferred in 1973 to new buildings near the university, offers professional training to intending performers and teachers of music and drama. It was established in 1949 as the National College of Music, with Harold Hind as its first principal, and its present name and constitution were adopted in 1970.
W.H.S. Johnstone and W.A. Morgan: History of the First Cardiff Festival 1892 (London and Cardiff, 1894)
R. Fawkes: Welsh National Opera (London, 1986)
R. Stowell: ‘The Cardiff University College Ensemble’, Welsh Music, viii/8 (1988), 25–32
D. Allsobrook: ‘The Cardiff Festival One Hundred Years Ago’, Welsh Music, ix/4 (1991–2), 37–45
MALCOLM BOYD