The National Chamber Choir's October tour ended on Wednesday night at St. Stephen's Church, Dublin. The programme had several points of interest, but was a bit of a hotchpotch.
The classical textures of Michael Haydn's Missa tempore quadragesimae felt out of place in a concert dominated by 20th-century music; and although Fergal Caulfield gave an effective performance of Debussy's Feux d'artifice, I am not convinced that there is artistic merit in using instrumental music as an interlude between the main choral fare.
The NCC and conductor Colin Mawby gave a good account of several works on the programme, including the most demanding one, Ravel's Trois Chansons. But the potential of many pieces was not fully realised because of an over-dependence on a general-purpose relationship between tone and dynamics. Quiet and loud singing had essentially the same character throughout the concert.
It was well worth hearing O Thou! Whose Spirit by Ina Boyle (1889-1967). Her accomplished, late-Romantic counterpoint catches the intensity of Henry Vaughan's visionary words.
A neat relationship between words and music was also shown in Paul Frost's Treall. This short, punchy piece was commissioned by the NCC when Frost won the Gerard Victory Memorial Award during the Bus Eireann/NCC composition workshops last year.
Another NCC commission was Conor O'Reilly's Land- scapes, which had been premiered two months ago. Its declamatory setting of T.S. Eliot's five poems is concerned primarily with individual words and phrases, though not at the expense of overall cohesion. The composer is a member of this choir, and his writing shows a sure command of choral resources.
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