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Browse piano sheets by John Hughes on Zen Virtual Piano. One Sunday morning in 1907, while walking home from chapel to Tregarth on the main road through Tonteg, John Hughes began to work out the melody of a hymn, and he finished it before the day was over. He had been approached that year by D. W. Thomas, conductor of Capel Rhondda Welsh Baptist Chapel in Hopkinstown, and he was a deacon and precentor at Salem Baptist Chapel. A melody worked out on a walk home from chapel suggests a composer who wrote close to his everyday life. A tune finished within one day went on to travel far beyond the road home. The eldest son of Evan Hughes, he was born at Dowlais on 22 November 1873; his parents moved to Llantwit Fardre in 1874, and his father served as deacon and precentor at Salem Baptist there. Evan Hughes bought his son a harmonium, which was delivered to Tonteg on a makeshift cart, and the boy's musical education flourished from there. At twelve he started work at a colliery, but he fell ill with typhoid after drinking from an infected stream and could not do underground work, so he became a colliery clerk. A boy kept above ground by illness and given a harmonium by his father suggests how two small turns shaped his working life and his music. The new melody went ahead as planned on 1 November 1907, played on the new organ while a choir sang Ann Griffiths's words from Wele'n Sefyll Rhwng Y Myrtwydd. An organ opening, and a choir pairing words by an earlier writer with a new melody, suggest that the tune was shaped for a particular occasion. The hymn was first called Rhondda, in honour of the chapel, and was later renamed Cwm Rhondda on the instruction of the choral conductor Harry Evans, so that it would not be confused with another hymn of the same name by M. O. Jones of Treherbert. A tune renamed to avoid confusion hints at how many hymns shared a title in his time. In his lifetime the hymn drew international attention, and Hughes was invited to conduct it at Roath Park in Cardiff for an audience of 30,000 people; it also became a favourite for congregational singing at sporting events and eisteddfodau. When he died in 1932, hundreds of men lined the streets of Tonteg and sang the hymn as his body was carried into Salem Chapel for the funeral. As William Jensen Reynolds describes it, Hughes worked in everyday jobs his entire life, and his worldwide fame as a hymn tune composer grew out of a hobby he kept on the side. Singing at a funeral and fame from a hobby suggest that his tune belonged to the community that sang it as much as to its writer.
Browse piano sheets by John Hughes on Zen Virtual Piano.
One Sunday morning in 1907, while walking home from chapel to Tregarth on the main road through Tonteg, John Hughes began to work out the melody of a hymn, and he finished it before the day was over. He had been approached that year by D. W. Thomas, conductor of Capel Rhondda Welsh Baptist Chapel in Hopkinstown, and he was a deacon and precentor at Salem Baptist Chapel. A melody worked out on a walk home from chapel suggests a composer who wrote close to his everyday life. A tune finished within one day went on to travel far beyond the road home.
The eldest son of Evan Hughes, he was born at Dowlais on 22 November 1873; his parents moved to Llantwit Fardre in 1874, and his father served as deacon and precentor at Salem Baptist there. Evan Hughes bought his son a harmonium, which was delivered to Tonteg on a makeshift cart, and the boy's musical education flourished from there. At twelve he started work at a colliery, but he fell ill with typhoid after drinking from an infected stream and could not do underground work, so he became a colliery clerk. A boy kept above ground by illness and given a harmonium by his father suggests how two small turns shaped his working life and his music.
The new melody went ahead as planned on 1 November 1907, played on the new organ while a choir sang Ann Griffiths's words from Wele'n Sefyll Rhwng Y Myrtwydd. An organ opening, and a choir pairing words by an earlier writer with a new melody, suggest that the tune was shaped for a particular occasion. The hymn was first called Rhondda, in honour of the chapel, and was later renamed Cwm Rhondda on the instruction of the choral conductor Harry Evans, so that it would not be confused with another hymn of the same name by M. O. Jones of Treherbert. A tune renamed to avoid confusion hints at how many hymns shared a title in his time.
In his lifetime the hymn drew international attention, and Hughes was invited to conduct it at Roath Park in Cardiff for an audience of 30,000 people; it also became a favourite for congregational singing at sporting events and eisteddfodau. When he died in 1932, hundreds of men lined the streets of Tonteg and sang the hymn as his body was carried into Salem Chapel for the funeral. As William Jensen Reynolds describes it, Hughes worked in everyday jobs his entire life, and his worldwide fame as a hymn tune composer grew out of a hobby he kept on the side. Singing at a funeral and fame from a hobby suggest that his tune belonged to the community that sang it as much as to its writer.
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Common questions
John Hughes was a colliery clerk and deacon at Salem Baptist Chapel who composed the hymn tune Cwm Rhondda.
On 1 November 1907 it was performed on the new organ, with a choir singing words by Ann Griffiths.
Its first name was Rhondda, after the chapel; it was changed so that the tune would not be mistaken for another hymn called Rhondda, by M. O. Jones.
When he died in 1932, hundreds of men lined the streets of Tonteg and sang the hymn as his body was carried into Salem Chapel.