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Music from the miners

When the noise stopped, when the blasting, digging, chiseling, splitting, loading and in the slate quarries and caverns ceased, miners in North Wales sang. Their music resounds generations later in dozens of choirs in this mountainous region in the western U.K. and in a recording by one group that shook the music world.

Powerful male voice in a tide of harmony swirl over a rapt audience. The Fron Male Voice Choir is on riser in the 13th century cathedral at St. Asaph in northern Wale. Visitors are welcome to observe at most choirs’ practices, and choral groups are found throughout Wales. Listeners simply walk in and steep themselves in a delectable draft of Welsh heritage.

Voice from the depths
In North Wales, the song arose in the 19th century from the chill, dark corners of mines, the yawning maws of slate quarries and the din of their workshops. Men whose jobs took them underground were too far from the surface to return during their half-hour for lunch. Those who hung on ropes to lever sheets of slate from walls couldn’t get home to eat. Cutters and dressers of the stone had to stay near their tool.

So some men retreated to cabins – huts where a lamp pushed back gloom and a stove hot, strong tea. Cabins competed, groups formed, and many villages had choirs of their own. Railroads came, and dingers carried the music beyond the valleys. Most choristers were part of the slate industry. But as mechanization slashed Welsh mining jobs from a peak of about 17,000 to today’s 300, choirs turned elsewhere for voice.

Now, “a professor may stand beside a street sweeper,” says baritone Idwal Jones, a 30-year member of the Bethesda-based Penrhyn Male Voice Choir. “It’s a great leveler . You’re as good as your voice.”

Vocabulary Focus

rapt (adj)---giving complete attention, or showing complete involvement

steep（somebody）in(something) (phr v)---to be completely surrounded by or involved in something

leveler (n)---something that affects people of every class and rank in the same way, making everyone seem equal

Specialized terms

slate quarry (n phr)---板岩采石场 a large pit where dark grey rock that can easily be cut into thin pieces and used for building material is dug out of the ground.

risers (n)---梯级；台阶a group of steps on which people sit or stand to see or be seen better

draft (n)---通风 a current of air blowing through a room; a serving of a beverage

maw (n)---无底洞，深渊 something that seems to surround and absorb everything near it