SITUATED directly between Armistice Day and Remembrance Day, and dedicated to the memory of long-standing YMS supporter Donald Barron, this concert saw York Musical Society joined by visiting ensemble Philharmonischer Chor Münster.

As always, contact between choir and director David Pipe was good, and entries were clear. The added challenge of the Minster’s acoustic, within quicker phrases, was a little disruptive elsewhere – but in the swirling mists of Vaughan Williams’s Towards the Unknown Region it was effective.

Richard Shephard replaced Pipe for Strauss’s Four Last Songs with soprano Jenny Stafford. Although the relentlessly rich colours started to blur after a while, the interpretation was subtly sensitive.

Baritone David Stout’s delivery was emphatic, and Stafford’s delicate high notes sublimely tasteful, in Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem under Pipe.

Wie Lieblich sind deine wohnungen, the well-loved fourth movement, is often taken indulgently slowly, which can detract from its inherent tenderness. Happily, the positive pace here maintained expressiveness without wallowing (or drowning in the Minster’s generous acoustic).

The reassuring mutual confidence between director and ensemble was made clear by how quickly and coolly they got back on track at the handful of moments when timing or tuning slipped.

The programme notes recalled that a YMS performance demonstrated a century ago that this work ‘transcended' war and politics and was “the common possession of the whole world”’. Both the message and the group’s love of the piece are alive and important today.

Review by Claire McGinn