The Galway Baroque Singers are among the few choirs in this country to have a distinctive identity in their sound. That valuable quality was a prominent ingredient of the ambitious concert given last Friday night at the National Concert Hall, when this choir and the RTE Concert Orchestra were conducted by Proinnsias O Duinn.

One of the impressive aspects of the concert was the blended and balanced choral tone. The sopranos and altos seemed like high and low parts of one section; more unusually, so did the tenors and basses. The full ensemble had a natural, clear sound: there was plenty of agility, and dynamics and colour were nicely focused throughout their fairly wide range. All these are indicators of a choir which is well-trained and carries no passengers - a credit to everyone and especially to the choral director, Audrey Corbett.

That said, it felt as if the choir was seriously stretched in Bruckner's Mass No 2 in E Minor. This very demanding piece includes much unaccompanied singing, features multiple divisions of the men's and women's sections, and is full of intricate counterpoint and precisely coloured harmonies. Despite many impressive aspects, the performance was insufficiently robust and that bit too patchy to make the best of this music.

By contrast, the Galway Baroque Singers had Mozart's Requiem firmly under their belt. Their sound was complemented by the well-balanced group of soloists: Ailish Tynan (soprano), Paula Murrihy (mezzo-soprano), Robin Tritschler (tenor) and Damian Smith (baritone). I would gladly have sacrificed some of the choral polish for a more gutsy, daring approach. Yet overall, this performance homed in on the music's essential quality of sublime drama.