LET us be frank. The Chapter House Choir under Stephen Williams is in as healthy a state as it has ever been, an ensemble which adds lustre to York's musical treasure-store. But this was not its finest hour.

Late in the day, this concert was moved from the Minster's North Transept to the steps leading to the High Altar.

Neither placement was as suited to this programme of English part-songs of the late 19th and early 20th centuries as the more intimate Chapter House would have been.

In this unfamiliar environment, without any immediate backdrop or sounding-board, the choir lost focus. Add to that a preponderance of songs that required extremely quiet, slow singing, and the evening became a test of audience concentration.

Elgar's Four Choral Songs for double choir were not an ideal starter, stretching the voices before they were fully warmed.

O Wild West Wind was pleasingly graphic, but its predecessors were flaccid.

Vaughan Williams found the singers altogether more vigorous, a nice sense of the dance in Just As The Tide and neat contrasts in The Lover's Ghost.

The control in Stanford's The Blue Bird and the clarity of his Quick! were only heard intermittently after the interval.

It was good to have Moeran's lovely Songs Of Springtime, even if their early promise paled.

But, apart from the gentlemen's excellent projection of The Wanderer, the return to Elgar was retrograde, sentimentality too often taking the place of momentum.