‘Doubly sweet a brotherhood in song’ reads a Keats quote at the bottom of Saturday night’s programme for the concert between Haverfordwest Male Voice Choir and the Oxford Welsh Male Voice Choir, and never could a more appropriate quote have been found.

As 120 mighty voices rose in triumph at St David’s Cathedral throughout the two-hour long performance, it became apparent that as well as being ‘doubly sweet’, both choirs had the musical skills to display a highly intuitive and exceptionally well-prepared understanding of their varied programme.

The concert opened with the Oxford Welsh singing ‘Llanfair’, and immediately one was aware of the immense control that the diminutive director, Helen Swift, holds over her men. They way in which she controls their voices is very precise while her movements as a conductor bear testimony to her understanding how each individual piece should be captured.

She achieved some beautifully rich textures with her voices, particularly in Roger Emerson’s arrangement of ‘Halleluia’ but particular mention must be made of the well-known Robbie Williams song ‘Angels’ arranged for male voices by David Lawrence. This contains some considerable intonation challenges as well as some extremely difficult entries and despite the occasional smudged line opening, the choir’s delivery was superb.  I was particularly impressed with a beautifully graded diminuendo towards the end.

The Oxford Welsh was accompanied by pianist Tim Croston and Blenheim Palace organist Andrew Patterson and noth were always a joy to listen to particularly in Swift’s arrangement of 'Finlandia' when the magnificent cathedral organ provided the spine for the final verse with Croston’s piano accompaniment providing the movement.

The Oxford Welsh is certainly a tough act to follow but my goodness, the Haverfordwest boys rose to the occasion magnificently.

The way in each voice is textured by director Sarah Sharpe is exemplary while once again, her control over their intonation is faultless.

Their warm, chocolatey tones are intricately layered with the result that the overall cohesion is immense, as was heard in ‘For the Fallen’ and again in ‘Ti yw Hon’.

Sarah Sharpe’s prowess and her obvious attention to the minutest detail came through strong and clear, particularly in the unaccompanied ‘My Lord What a Morning’. Here the choir displayed some perfect entries, ssome precise pauses and some beautifully controlled ritenutos. These, as any conductor will tell you, are extremely difficult to achieve, but Sharpe and HMVC have got it down to a fine art.

The choir is also blessed with a fantastic line-up of tenors (otherwise known as ‘gold-dust’) and the tops manifested themselves with exquisite, crystal-clear tenor lines, particularly in ‘When The Saints Go Marching In’. The choir also showed some strong staccato emphasis in this song.

The other ‘gold-dust dilemma’ that vocalists must contend with is the fact that good pianists are very far removed from good accompanists. All a pianist has to do is play very nicely on their own but an accompanist has to listen to everyone and everything going on around them, be of precisely the same mindset as the director and pull the whole caboodle together in a seamless fashion. And mark my words, that doesn’t come easy.

But Haverfordwest's Peter Griffiths is truly astounding, both in his command of the piano but also in his profound understanding as a musician and as an accompanist.

I particularly enjoyed listening to his beautiful phrasing in ‘Ti yw Hon which displayed his musicality so well.

This was the first time I’ve had the pleasure of listening to Haverfordwest Male Voice Choir but I can assure you it won’t be my last.