Not many choral societies are willing to be specific about the difficulties of the music they are about to perform.

In their programme note, the Chorale highlighted the need to ensure that when the tempo is snappy in J S Bach’s Magnificat the clarity of utterance is not lost.

It’s a reminder applicable to lots of other Baroque choral works but they have not predominated in the choir’s repertory since 1981, when it was known as the Cross Keys Choral Society.

All the Magnificat choruses are brisk and the part-singing often fearsomely complex, as in the accumulating fugal entries of Fecit potentiam. They are in truth often a mite brisker than conductor Paul Cook chose to take them with the Concert Orchestra de Cymru; but his choice betrayed his wisdom, in that the interweaving threads were for the most part that much easier to follow.

Small things speak large on these occasions and the poise and assurance with which chorister Bev Parsons stepped up to join soloists Jill Padfield and Joanne Thomas for the aria Suscepit Israel was a credit to the choir.

In Bach and in Mozart’s Requiem, Ms Padfield, Ms Thomas, tenor Richard Allen and bass Dyfed Wyn Evans seemed buoyed and inspired by what was going on behind them, possibly the best commendation a choir can earn when each section is determined to enter the proceedings on time and on song.

The Requiem, like the Magnificat, possesses an internal momentum which in amateur circles can only be enhanced by the Chorale’s embodiment of what earnest English critics in the old days grudgingly celebrated as ‘valleys singing.’ It’s always been in evidence at Cross Keys. Praise be for that.