The Cyfarthfa Project

This project concerned a private brass band initiated in the Welsh town of Merthyr Tydfil in 1840. Its golden period was between c.1846 and c.1879. It was attached to the Cyfarthfa Castle estate, the home of Robert Thompson Crawshay, owner of the Cyfarthfa Iron Works. At that time Merthyr Tydfil and its surrounding areas produced more iron than any other place in the world. The surviving sources for this virtuoso band are voluminous: photograph, documents, instruments, and the hand-written part-books survive. They were the subject of a major collaboration between the Cyfarthfa Castle Museum, The Open University, the BBC and the Wallace Collection Brass Ensemble, aimed at recreating the sound of the band. It was the first project that applied historical performance methods to the repertoire of a brass band. Provided here are articles by Trevor Herbert about the Cyfarthfa Band, and the catalogue of instruments in the Cyfarthfa Museum which was prepared by Arnold Myers and Trevor Herbert and is reproduced by kind permission of the curator of the Cyfarthfa Castle Museum. There is also a link to an Open University programme about the reconstruction of the musical and cultural identity of the Cyfarthfa Band.

Welsh History and its sources - Section 4.3 The celebrated Cyfarthfa band (OpenLearrn Course)

A Lament for Sam Hughes: The Last Great Ophicleidist (Trevor Herbert) (DOC, 50kb)