The mysterious death of a Welsh composer

The dazzling life and mysterious death of Welsh singer, pianist and composer Morfydd Owen is explored in a new costume drama released on S4C this month, writes Jenny White...

ONE of Wales’ greatest unsung heroes, Morfydd Owen was an astonishingly talented singer, pianist and composer who died 100 years ago this year, aged just 26. Now her story is set to reach a wider audience via a new Welsh-language TV dramatisation of her life, released over the Christmas period.

The film, called Morfydd, stars Bafta Cymru-winning actress Rhian Blythe (Gwaith/Cartref, Parch) in the lead role. Rhian is daughter of the late Welsh actor Robert Blythe, who was best known as Richard “Fagin” Hepplewhite in the Welsh situation comedy High Hopes.

Matthew Gravelle (Broadchurch, Keeping Faith) plays her husband Ernest, and Elin Manahan Thomas features as Morfydd’s singing voice. The screenplay was written by multi-award-winning screenwriter Siwan Jones and the music was arranged by Pobol y Cwm actor Arwyn Davies, son of Ryan Davies of Ryan and Ronnie fame.

Morfydd Owen grew up in Treforest, where a blue plaque was recently unveiled at her house. She excelled in music, winning a scholarship to study at University College Cardiff and being admitted to the Gorsedd of the Bards at the Wrexham National Eisteddfod in her graduation year.

She went on to win a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music and accumulated plenty of awards during her time there.

In London, she threw herself into bohemian circles, mixing with renowned writers and musicians – but her life changed dramatically after she married the doctor and neurologist Ernest Jones, who is believed to have had a stifling effect on her creativity, pressuring her to lay aside her music and take up the role of housewife.

She died less that two years after their hasty and secretive marriage, reportedly succumbing to chloroform poisoning after her husband and a fellow doctor carried out an operation to remove her inflamed appendix on his parents’ kitchen table.

Much mystery surrounds her death – there was no post-mortem examination and no inquest was held. The one thing everybody agrees on was it was a tremendous loss for Wales and for the arts.

The film gives a fictionalised version of what might have happened in her marriage, and is bound to fuel speculation about how she died. For Rhian Blythe, part of the appeal was the thriller-like quality of the tale; but she also fell in love with Morfydd’s character.

“I had heard her name before but I didn’t know her story or her music,” she says. “When I got the call from my agent about her audition, I did a bit of research and I slowly fell in love with her through her music.

“I found it incredible that she wrote all of that before she was 26. It has such passion and emotion, and she seemed to know a lot at a very young age. Songs like Gweddi’r Pechadur can reduce you to tears – I was hooked.”

Like many people, she became puzzled by Morfydd’s decision to marry Ernest – a man who wanted his wife to stay at home, playing a wholly domestic role that was at odds with the life she had enjoyed.

“I couldn’t really understand why she married this man – she met him on New Year’s Eve and they married on February 5, having only seen each other a handful of times.

“The conclusion I came to was she was getting older – she was 26 and had told him she was two years younger. I think she thought he was quite modern – he was working with Freud – and she thought she would be able to stay in London and carry on with her life as it was. Clearly he had other plans. He expected her to be at home and look after the house, and very quickly she lost her sense of self.

“She stopped singing and composing and if you look at the photos of her during that time, there is a real difference. In earlier photos she dresses flamboyantly with hats and feathers; but at the end she is wearing white and always looks really sad in the photos.”

It’s easy to see Ernest as the villain, but Matthew Gravelle, who plays him, thinks it is not a simple question of right and wrong.

“I don’t really think he can be the ‘bad guy’ – he’s a lot more complex. I wanted to find out who he was and why he acted as he did,” he says.

Ernest Jones was a respected psychoanalyst and a member of high society at the time. By all accounts, he was a very likeable person and lots of people were very fond of him. He was very influential in his field – he had translated Freud’s terminology and he started the practice of psychoanalysis in the UK.

“I think he actually thought he was doing the best thing for Morfydd – he wanted to ‘cure’ her,” says Matthew.

“I definitely think there was a bipolar element to her character and he wanted to change her rather than let her be the person she wanted to be.

“But he most probably was having affairs with some of the women he was treating during the time he was with Morfydd. There were some charges of misconduct against him and accusations of inappropriate behaviour with young women.”

At the same time, he imposed the most traditional of roles on his wife.

“He wanted a wife in the old-fashioned sense – someone to keep house, look good and keep quiet – but Morfydd wasn’t like that. She was a big character, she wanted to live life to the full and when you try to squeeze that into a small cage, it was never going to work out. Ernest did eventually find what he wanted – he married not that long after Morfydd’s death and had a long and happy marriage – he found the right person.”

In preparing for the role, Matthew sourced Ernest Jones’ autobiography and even tracked down an interview with him on YouTube.

“It was really interesting to read about his own life in his own words, better than a biography in many ways, because hearing his own voice was a real help. The interview, filmed in the 1950s when he was 70-plus, gave me an idea of what his voice was like and this was really useful.”

Meanwhile, Rhian took singing lessons, even though her songs in the film are voiced by Elin Manahan Thomas.

“I had to have singing lessons just to learn how to breathe like a singer and how to perform the songs, so I had lessons with Rhiannon Pritchard, who was also my hands double for playing the piano in the film. I would watch her playing piano then have to do something similar. At the time it sounded horrendous – there were quite a few giggles behind the camera!”

Morfydd is the first film Rhian has ever starred in and she enjoyed the experience from start to finish.

“It was a lovely experience,” she says. “Compared to filming for TV, there seemed to be a difference in the pace and feel of the whole thing; there seemed to be more time.”

For Matthew, this was a chance to feature in another costume drama, having previously played the artist JMW Turner in an episode of The Scarlet Pimpernel.

“I really enjoyed playing a character from a different era. Wearing the costume and looking at yourself in the mirror makes it much easier to get into character.”

The result is a riveting tale full of beautiful period detail – and one that will hopefully gain Morfydd Owen a little more of the recognition she deserves.

■ Morfydd will be screened on Sunday, December 16, at 9pm.