The title quotation from Under Milk Wood encapsulates a widely held belief in the innate musicality of the Welsh and its religious roots. These roots were put down deeply during the nineteenth century, in a huge expansion of choral and congregational singing across Wales and particularly in the industrial communities. This development has been described as ‘a democratic popular choral culture rooted in the lives of ordinary people’, and central to it was the cymanfa ganu, the mass hymn-singing festival. Choral and congregational singing, typified by the cymanfa ganu, underpinned the perception of Wales by the Welsh and by many non-Welsh people as ‘the land of song’.Alongside this phenomenon ran the tradition of the plygain, a Welsh Christmas carol service. While the cymanfa developed in nonconformist chapels in the mid to late nineteenth century, and on a large – often massive – scale, the plygain is a tradition dating from a period much further back, when Welsh Christianity was Catholic; it belonged to agricultural workers rather than the industrial communities; and the singers sang in much smaller groups – often just twos or threes.This article describes the nature and origins of these contrasting traditions, and looks at the responses of listeners both Welsh and non-Welsh, and the extent to which they perceived these practices as expressive of a peculiarly Welsh identity. It also considers some of the problems of gathering evidence of working-class responses, and how far the sources give an insight into working-class listening experiences.

中文翻译：

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‘赞美主！我们是一个音乐国家”：威尔士工人阶级和宗教歌唱

标题引自在牛奶木下概括了对威尔士人与生俱来的音乐性及其宗教根源的广泛信仰。在 19 世纪，随着合唱和会众歌唱在威尔士特别是工业社区的大规模扩张，这些根基被深深扎根。这种发展被描述为“一种植根于普通人生活的民主流行合唱文化”，其核心是cymanfa ganu，群众赞美诗歌节。合唱和会众演唱，以cymanfa ganu，巩固了威尔士人和许多非威尔士人将威尔士视为“歌曲之乡”的看法。plygain，威尔士圣诞颂歌服务。虽然仙人掌在 19 世纪中后期在不循规蹈矩的教堂中发展起来，而且规模很大——通常是大规模的，plygain是一种可以追溯到更远时期的传统，当时威尔士基督教是天主教徒；它属于农业工人而不是工业社区；歌手们以更小的群体演唱——通常只有三人或三人。本文描述了这些对比传统的性质和起源，并研究了威尔士和非威尔士听众的反应，以及他们对这些做法的看法作为一种特殊的威尔士身份的表达。它还考虑了收集工人阶级回应证据的一些问题，以及这些来源对工人阶级聆听体验的洞察力。