Songs from the Valleys of Wales

The 31 songs spread over two CDs running over 96 minutes that make up this compilation are "from the valleys of Wales" only in the sense that the singers are. They are the 60-strong members of the Blaenavon Male Voice Choir, which has been singing out officially since 1910 and unofficially well before that. There are songs here that they could have been singing at their first gathering and quite a few that have been added to their repertoire over the years. The recordings themselves, originally made for the Soundline label and licensed by Silva Screen, date from the period 2000-2006. They have been sequenced to give two different impressions of the choir, which might be dubbed the sacred and the secular. Disc one features a number of selections credited to "Traditional," some with overtly religious titles ("Angels Watching O'er Me," "I'll Walk with God"). The singers are appropriately reverent in approaching this material. Some of the more contemporary songs on the second disc also have an inspirational appeal ("Bridge Over Troubled Water," "The Impossible Dream," "You'll Never Walk Alone") even if they aren't actually hymns, and they get respectful readings, too. But there is also livelier fare. The singers get as upbeat as they can on "Mame," even if they never quite sound like they're from the American South. And a dramatic solo voice (unnamed in the credits) leads "Bui-Doi," a song from the musical Miss Saigon about abandoned children. Appropriately, the religious and the nationalistic are conflated in the closing track, that anthemic song known to every British schoolboy, "Jerusalem." The choir proves to be both traditional and innovative on this satisfying set of highlights from its more recent recordings.