IT IS always a good sign when a performance ends with a prolonged silence: nobody wants to break the spell.

Verdi's Requiem, once dubbed his "finest opera", generated an immense aura that in some ways surpassed the sum of its parts.

The occasion drew added lustre from the presence on the platform of 56 members of the Philharmonischer Chor, Mnster, with their conductor Martin Henning.

But it was Philip Moore who took the podium.

Never demonstrative, on this occasion he shook off the shackles of restraint in a display of rare intensity.

Verdi leans heavily on his soloists, and here Moore had chosen wisely.

Jane Irwin's sturdy mezzo set the tone early with her dramatic contribution to the Dies Irae. Sally Johnson's soprano took slightly longer to find focus, but her courage in the stratosphere consistently set the hairs on end, notably in the Libera Me.

Joshua Ellicott's tenor was especially fluent in the Ingemisco, while Daniel Jordan's bass was never less than a reliable underpinning to a determined quartet.

The choir, always on its toes, reached its apogee in an excited and exciting Sanctus, and built up its various utterances of Dies Irae into considerable anger by the end. The sopranos shone throughout.

The orchestral brass, perhaps inevitably in York Minster's lustrous acoustic, delivered a gleaming, majestic Tuba Mirum. If the strings were never quite as dashing, the overall effect was stunning nevertheless, a memorable experience.

Updated: 11:09 Monday, June 21, 2004