LET'S hear it for the Chapter House Choir seeing sense and restoring Carols By Candlelight, after the aberration that was little more than a soulless carol service in the Minster's nave.

This was the first of two evenings of mainly 20th century carols, alongside four recent arrangements of older ones for handbells.

St Michael-le-Belfrey was at its atmospheric best – dare one say, even more beautiful than the Chapter House used to be. In keeping with the candlelight, Stephen Williams had chosen settings of more ancient poetry. Only two years after In the Bleak Midwinter, in 1907, Holst wrote four highly evocative old English carols, of which we heard a nicely controlled account of Jesu, Thou The Virgin-born. Peter Wishart's Alleluia, A New Work made a vigorous contrast.

Another vital juxtaposition came with Tavener's raucous, medieval-style Today The Virgin heard immediately before the sustained pianissimo of Warlock's Bethlehem Down. Goldschmidt's A Tender Shoot belied its title, and Vaughan Williams's arrangement of The Truth From Above needed to be heard first in its unvarnished, solo state, before his modal harmonies.

Stephen Williams's own syncopated Ding, Dong! Merrily On High, virtually a new piece, would have made the ideal finale. But it was followed by some transatlantic slush which threatened to devalue an excellent evening, to which the handbells, spurred by arrangements from John Hastie and Andrew Carter, made a colourful contribution. Nevertheless, it was a delight to have the old format back.