National Chamber Choir/Colin Mawby

The National Chamber Choir's current tour includes a piece commissioned by the NCC. Ian Wilson's Poem in October sets a text by Dylan Thomas and shows that surety with technique which one can expect from this composer. Its feel for language captures effectively the details of the sevenstanza recollectory narrative. Yet those strengths are also its weakness.

The contrast with another Romantic recollection, Stanford's The Blue Bird, was revealing. This immaculate period piece reconciles the conflicting demands of Romantic musical cohesion and poetic narrative through a varied strophic design. Wilson's piece is of our time; but its aesthetic is scarcely less Romantic than Stanford's. Its non-repetitive concern with textual detail requires an eye-on-the-words mode of listening which ultimately defeats the transcendent aspirations.

The Blue Bird and Barber's Agnus Dei were performance highlights of this concert, given in the Assembly Room of Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Hall on Wednesday night. Yet these pieces - favourites of the NCC and conductor Colin Mawby, it seems - raised fundamental questions about the NCC's repertoire.

There were 14 items on the programme, ranging chronologically from Janequin to Wilson and including three works for piano solo, played by Fergal Caulfield. In the last 18 months or so I have heard the NCC sing at least seven of the 11 choral pieces, some more than once. Granted that repetition breeds confidence, that this concert offered a good evening of varied choral music and that commissioning new music is just what a choir of this status and potential should do. But it should also display itself through programmes which are more thematic and exploratory.

The National Chamber Choir tours to Navan (St Mary's Church) October 15th, Dublin (Hugh Lane Gallery) the 17th, Belfast (Elmwood Hall) October 19th, Letterkenny (An Grianan Theatre) the 20th, Enniskillen (Ardhowen Theatre) the 21st.