ABSTRACT
Two common assumptions about music in Wales before 1650 tend to prevail, particularly among musicologists working outside Wales. The first is that too little material survives to enable coherent study. The second is that what does remain is obscure and mediocre by comparison with other musical repertories, and is therefore unworthy of serious scholarly consideration. An oral tradition persisted far later in Wales than in other parts of Britain, resulting in limited use of conventional notation, particularly in secular music, right up to the eighteenth century. Equally, the wilful destruction of liturgical sources containing music had even more profound impact in Wales than elsewhere in Britain, a consequence not only of virulent Protestant reform during the sixteenth century and further destruction in the Cromwellian era, but also of the frequent plundering of churches by native raiders at an earlier period.
