St Patrick's Cathedral

Satyagraha (Finale Act III) - Philip Glass (arr. Michael Riesman)

Passio - Arvo Part

St Patrick's Cathedral was full on Saturday night for a Guinness Choir concert which stepped outside the standard, chorally ingratiating repertoire.

Arvo Part's Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Secundam Joannem (St John Passion) epitomises that unique style which emerged out of the composer's studies of Medieval and Renaissance music. Of around 75 minutes of music, the choir get less than 10. But what they get is central and totally integrated with the surrounding material.

This music is extraordinarily disciplined. Its repeated patterns are so economical with pitch and rhythm that the smallest change, a solitary note from one of the four solo instruments, is telling. Its concentration totally outclassed the soft-centred minimalism of the concert's opening item, which was Michael Riesman's arrangement of the Finale from Act III of Philip Glass's opera Satyagraha. It received a well-controlled performance from Colm Carey.

In a palette as confined as Part's, every event counts; and most of the choral ones did. Only occasionally did the choir have problems with that precise pitching which makes the dense, dissonant chords vibrate as they should. In that respect and others, the solo quartet - Helen Roycroft (soprano), Stephen Shellard (alto), Christopher Gifford (tenor) and Michael Finlay (bass) who as soloists and an ensemble proclaim the Evangelist's words, were outstanding. Declan Kelly (tenor) was excellent as Pilate, while John Milne (bass) had a suitably detached gravitas as Jesus. And the instrumentalists Colm Carey (organ), Michael Healy (violin), Debbie Clifford (oboe), Michael Jones (bassoon) and Jane Hughes ('cello), fitted in perfectly.

Archaism and non-dramatic expression give this Passio an objective character which makes it a truly contemporary presentation of the eternal story. Sustaining that quality requires precise pacing, which is what the conductor, David Milne, achieved.