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Mansel Thomas
was one of the most important and influential musicians
of his generation in Wales. Famous throughout the Principality
(and far beyond it) as composer, conductor and adjudicator,
he was for many years the BBC's principal music representative
for Wales and was able to encourage and promote, with characteristic
generosity, the early career of many composers and performers
who have since become celebrities. He himself wrote a large
and varied range of music - vocal, choral (mixed, female
and male voices), instrumental (solo and chamber, band and
orchestral.) He was equally at home in sacred and secular
fields but expressed himself more naturally and spontaneously
in works of short or medium duration than in extended forms,
such as oratorio, opera or symphony.
A native of South
Wales he took up the Rhondda Scholarship to the Royal Academy
of Music in London at the early age of 16 and under the
wing of composer Benjamin Dale enjoyed a brilliant studentship,
winning a number of prestigious awards and prizes. As a
young composer he showed a remarkable inclination and aptitude
for song-writing which was to remain one of his most cherished
art-forms (most of his I50+ solo vocal compositions and
arrangements were unknown until recent research). He also
displayed a gift for orchestration and this was to become
another considerable aspect of his prowess during the years
at the BBC.
Mansel Thomas
joined the BBC in Cardiff in 1936 as a music assistant and
deputy conductor of the BBC Welsh Orchestra. Following war
service he resumed these duties, but as Principal Conductor
of the orchestra, and in 1950 was appointed Head of Music,
BBC Wales. These were formative years and broadcasts of
Welsh music increased in frequency and quality under his
professional scrutiny.
Though he himself
never ceased to find some time to compose and arrange, nevertheless
the increasing scale of his BBC commitments - and the onset
of television introduced yet another dimension - did not
allow him the amount of time he always wanted. So, he decided
to take early retirement in 1965 to devote himself to composition.
He and his wife, Megan, moved to a 16th century cottage
in rural Gwent where he produced what is probably the most
important corpus of his work, especially in both vocal and
choral spheres, including works for the Royal Investiture
of 1969. It was indeed a tragedy when he suffered a major
stroke in 1979 and wrote little else of significance during
the seven years that remained.
His stature as
a Welsh composer however has remained undiminished and for
his services to British music he was awarded the OBE and
the FRAM. He left an enormous and invaluable legacy of compositions
and almost all of those not previously published are now
appearing in print for the first time.
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