National Chamber Choir/Colin Mawby, Fergal Caulfield (piano)

Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin

The National Chamber Choir's February tour reached the Hugh Lane Gallery on Sunday; the next stop will be Mallow. The first items in their concert were two resonant works for double-choir by two Italian composers of the 16th century, Giovanni Croce and Luca Marenzio. Although the two choirs could not be placed far enough apart for a fully antiphonal effect, the singing was such that one could, closing one's eyes, imagine oneself in an old basilica where the stone vaulting gave the sound even greater richness.

The three songs which followed, settings of Charles d'Orleans by Debussy, had 16th-century words but harmonies which would have surprised the poet. The choir was a little cautious at the beginning, but, in the final song, a denunciation of winter (Hiver, vous n'etes qu'un vilain!) it was in full voice. In the second song, Cora Newman's alto solo brought a flavour of folk song which contrasted well with the others.

Fergal Caulfield (piano) gave a Lisztian rendition of Debussy's Reflets dans l'eau and then accompanied the remaining items. The Four Slovak Folksongs by Bartok had unusually dulcet piano parts; it was as if the composer were trying to make folksongs acceptable in the salon. The piano and choir were more suitably related by Schubert in his setting of Psalm 23, Gott ist mein Hirt, but it was only in William Matthias's settings of eight Shakespeare songs that singers and piano became indispensable to each other.

These were sung with a controlled abandon, a joie de vivre that lifted even the gloomier texts (Full fathom five my father lies and Fear no more the heat o' the sun). It was a lover and his lass, with its whistled accompaniment, was a tour de force, and in the final song, Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Colin Mawby and the Chamber Choir delivered the text with vigour and incisiveness.

Audiences in the other venues will have the additional pleasure of hearing Borodin's Polorstian Dances, for which there was not time in Dublin.