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In the summer of 1918, one of Wales' most talented composers was on holiday on the Swansea coast.

Morfydd Owen was a child prodigy from Treforest who quickly became a musical star and ended up in fashionable and influential circles in London.

Aged just 26, Owen had established a "formidable reputation" as a composer, pianist and singer and was set to potentially become one of her generation's most important musicians.

But during the summer of 1918, while on holiday in Oystermouth staying at her home of her husband's parents, Owen developed acute appendicitis.

(Image: UGC)

She needed urgent surgery and was forced to undergo a hurried operation at the family home.

After a few days, Owen fell ill again and died from posioning.

A cryptic message on her gravestone, her burial without a death certificate and lack of post-mortem examination has left her death shrouded in mystery.

Owen was born on October 1 1891 to a musical household in Treforest.

It was clear she had a musical gift, and by 1909 she had won a scholarship to study music at Cardiff University.

After graduating, Owen won a top prize at the Wrexham Eisteddfod and won another scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Not long after she began life in London 1912, her impressive amount of work gained her attention from national newspapers and she immersed herself in life in the capital.

Morfydd Owen researcher Rhian Davies described how Owen enjoyed riding in motorcycle sidecars, wore flamboyant clothes and "gargantuan" hats to picnics.

She quickly started moving in high circles that included Lady Chatterley's Lover author D. H. Lawrence and Russian princes.

Writer Ben Gwalchmai, from Powys, wrote previously: "Fiery, talented and full of creative energy, it’s no wonder that Morfydd attracted the attention of many potential suitors.

He added: "Morfydd’s creativity was inspired in London and she not only composed new, brilliant music but created makeshift dresses of her own design too."

Cardiff University music lecturer Peter Leech said it was "very unusual" that a female composer from Wales found fame at the time.

He said: "She had quite an influential circle of friends.

"She moved in the upper echelons of both English and Welsh society.

"She knew David Lloyd-George, he commissioned a piece of work from her when he was minister of war."

Several men had tried to gain her affection, but Owen eventually married renowned psychoanalyst Ernest Jones from Gowerton.

The pair were introduced towards the end of 1916 and after only a few months they married in February 1917.

The marriage was a shock to her friends, with few knowing it was even taking place, and her parents didn't attend after Jones brought the ceremony forward by a day.

Jones was a controversial figure at the time and was the biographer of the world famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud.

He also hoped his wife would eventually discard her "simple-minded" religious beliefs.

After the marriage Owen's once impressive output of work began to decrease as Jones expected his wife to support his busy social and professional life.

Just weeks after writing to a friend complaining that married life had "taken up all my time", Owen died aged 26.

Her husband wanted his brother-in-law and top surgeon Wilfred Trotter to travel to Swansea in time, but he said Owen needed surgery straight away.

The operation was carried out by another leading surgeon, William Frederick Brook, in the family home.

In his autobiography, Jones described the days leading to hear death on September 7.

He wrote: "After a few days [she] became delirious with a high temperature. We thought there was blood poisoning till I got Trotter from London.

"He at once recognised delayed chloroform poisoning. It had recently been discovered, which neither the local doctor nor I had known, that this is a likelihood with a patient who is young, has suppuration in any part of the body, and has been deprived of sugar (due to war rationing); in such circumstances, only ether is permissible as an anaesthetic.

"This simple piece of ignorance cost a valuable and promising life. We fought hard, and there were moments when we seemed to have succeeded, but it was too late."

Decades later, mystery still surrounds Owen's death.

(Image: © Copyright Alan Richards)

Dr Davies wrote: "The circumstances of the appendectomy performed at the home of her parents-in-law in Mumbles on the Gower Peninsula continue to raise more questions than they answer.

"Why was the operation carried out in a house when a major hospital was only moments away? Why was there no post mortem?

"And why was she buried without a death certificate?

"Official paperwork was filed a fortnight after the funeral had taken place at Oystermouth Cemetery."

Owen was buried on September 11 at the cemetery, where her gravestone bears a cryptic message in German chosen by Jones.

It reads: "Here the indescribable is done."

What exactly did it mean?

A new Welsh-language TV dramatisation of her life was screened over Christmas.

(Image: Alistair Heap)

The film, called Morfydd, stars Bafta Cymru winning actress Rhian Blythe in the lead role.

The actress said: "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."

In her 10 years as a composer, Owen left around 250 scores and a number of hymns.

On December 14, the Cardiff University Chamber Choir performed a number of rarely heard works by Owen to mark the 100th anniversary of her death.

The programme included the world premiere performance of two pieces, and three others barely heard since they were written.

Until now, the five pieces were held in Cardiff University's Special Collections, only recently being transcribed by music student Megan Auld.

Although little is known about the exact circumstances of her death, it's clear that Owen would have become even more succesful.

Music lecturer Peter Leech said: "She would have gone on to become one of the leading composers of her generation."