Stacy Jarvis discusses the role of the amateur artist in relation to Anthony Hopkin’s chart-topping album.
At the age of 88, Sir Anthony Hopkins has released his first album of orchestral music, which has recently reached number one on the UK classical albums chart. However, it would not be entirely accurate to describe the album, Life Is a Dream, as the start of his life as a composer. Hopkins has been composing music for more than six decades. He began playing the piano as a child and, in his own words, music was his ‘first desire and first wish’.
The album Life Is a Dream, released by Decca Classics on August 21, brings together twelve compositions written at various stages of Hopkins’s life, performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra, and conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. These works are closely linked to memories of his wife and family, as well as the Wales of his childhood.
Syniadau uchelgeisiol, awdurdodol a mentrus.
Ymunwch â ni i gyfrannu at wneud Cymru gwell.
‘Bracken Road’, part of his ‘1947 Suite’ evokes Margam in South Wales: the streets, fields, and mountains that surrounded his childhood home. Hopkins first came up with this melody in 1963, while working as a young actor at the Liverpool Playhouse. Before rehearsals, he would sit down at the piano backstage and improvise. More than sixty years later, this private musical idea has become part of an orchestral recording.
Another piece, My Fatherland, draws on traditional Welsh melodies. Hopkins describes it as an attempt to ‘honour my humble beginnings’, adding: ‘I am the son of my father, the baker’. A recent Guardian review notes that the piece incorporates six traditional Welsh tunes.
Derived from the Latin amateur — ‘lover’ — this word described a person who engaged in a particular activity out of love or inclination, rather than primarily as a profession.
There is something remarkable about a creative practice persisting for so long alongside an entirely different public career. Hopkins gained international recognition as an actor, while continuing to compose music, which, for most of his life, existed largely outside the scope of his professional identity.
Today, we might describe such a creative life with an awkward word: amateur. The problem is that we have come to confuse ‘amateur’ with ‘amateurish’.Calling someone an amateur today can sound like a judgment on quality. It can imply a lack of training or seriousness, or work that falls short of professional standards. Yet, the older concept of an ‘amateur’ was considerably richer. Derived from the Latin amateur — ‘lover’ — this word described a person who engaged in a particular activity out of love or inclination, rather than primarily as a profession.
For much of European musical history, the boundary between amateur and professional was far more blurred than we often imagine.
The nineteenth-century musical culture, that I research, was full of people whose participation in musical life cannot be neatly categorised according to modern professional standards. Drawing rooms and salons allowed accomplished amateurs to interact directly with renowned performers and composers. People played, sang, improvised, and composed both at home and in public. Music could be a serious intellectual and emotional pursuit without being a primary source of income.
Indeed, much of the musical life in the nineteenth century depended on this culture. Before sound recordings and radio broadcasting, making music oneself was one of the main ways of experiencing it. The piano in the drawing room was not merely a piece of furniture or a symbol of social status; it enabled families and friends to discover new compositions, accompany singers, perform arrangements of orchestral and operatic works, and compose their own music.
However, professionalisation has also encouraged us to think of creativity as something that requires permission.
Women were particularly active participants in this musical world, even when social conventions made a public professional career difficult or impossible. Consequently, the distinction between private and public music-making said surprisingly little about how skilled, knowledgeable, or influential a particular musician might have been.
Of course, this system had its drawbacks. To romanticise the amateur past would be just as misguided as dismissing it. Access to instruments, lessons, sheet music, and musical gatherings depended to a large extent on wealth and social status, while gender and class limited who could turn their musical abilities into a public career.
We should not lament the professionalisation of music. Conservatoires, professional orchestras, and specialised training have created opportunities and standards that previous generations could scarcely have imagined. However, professionalisation has also encouraged us to think of creativity as something that requires permission.
We ask whether someone is truly a composer, writer, musician, or artist. We look for qualifications, institutional affiliations, commissions, recordings, and – perhaps most importantly – evidence that this is how a person earns a living. Creative identity has become increasingly specialised: an actor acts, a composer composes, and a pianist plays the piano.
Hopkins makes this division seem strange.
He hardly fits the traditional image of an amateur musician. Life Is a Dream was recorded by one of Britain’s leading orchestras under Dudamel’s baton and released by one of the major classical music labels. His waltz ‘And the Waltz Goes On’ had already reached a wide audience through André Rieu, many years before this album was released. Decca notes that Hopkins received a Classic Brit Award in 2012 for his contribution to Rieu’s recording.
Music does not necessarily have to begin as a product intended for the market or even for an audience.
However, this is precisely what makes his story so interesting. At what point does an amateur become a professional? When the music is recorded? When it is performed by a major orchestra? When Decca signs the composer? Or was Hopkins already entitled to consider himself a composer on those quiet mornings at Liverpool Playhouse in 1963?
What is particularly moving about the album, Life Is a Dream, is that much of this music seems to have been created for reasons other than professional advancement. Decca describes the album as an ‘intimate musical memoir’ shaped by loved ones, imagination and heritage. These compositions preserve people, landscapes, and memories. Bracken Road transforms the geography of a childhood spent in Wales into music. My Fatherland looks towards family and national belonging. Other pieces are dedicated to his wife, Stella, and his niece, Tara.
In this respect, Hopkins’s musical life has something in common with an older culture of domestic music-making.
Gofod i drafod, dadlau, ac ymchwilio.
Cefnogwch brif felin drafod annibynnol Cymru.
Music does not necessarily have to begin as a product intended for the market or even for an audience. It can be a means of remembering, communicating, experimenting and maintaining a connection with people and places. This possibility matters far beyond the unusual case of a Hollywood star releasing an orchestral album at 88.
This tradition remains visible across Wales today. National Youth Arts Wales works with approximately 2,000 young people each year, while its Côr Skills programme specifically introduces young people who love singing, but have never sung in a group, to communal music-making. In 2023, a record 124 young singers applied to join the National Youth Choir of Wales, including several from non-choral backgrounds. Nevertheless, to call someone a ‘serious amateur’ can still sound slightly apologetic, as if seriousness is the exclusive preserve of professionals.
Hopkins’s album offers a welcome challenge to this assumption. Whether his compositions ultimately become part of the classical repertoire is beside the point. We need not pretend that every amateur is an undiscovered genius, or blur the lines between professional and amateur artists, to acknowledge that creativity can be hugely significant without necessarily becoming a career.
Perhaps that is why the creation of the album, Life Is a Dream, is less surprising than the reaction to it. The Hollywood actor did not suddenly discover that he was allowed to compose. He simply shared with the world something that had accompanied him for most of his life. And in the music that returns time and again to Margam, Port Talbot, his childhood, and his family, one of the world’s most famous Welsh actors has preserved yet another facet of his identity: the boy who played the piano, remembered the landscapes around his home, and continued to make music long after the world came to know him for something else.
All articles published on the welsh agenda are subject to IWA’s disclaimer. If you want to support our work tackling Wales’ key challenges, consider becoming a member.
