Presented in the lower half of King's College Chapel, this concert promised choral and orchestral warmth in a veritable orgy of late Romantic harmony.

The orchestra began with Wagner's Siegfried Idyll, a work first performed for the composer's wife in their bedroom, but this intimacy was immediately gobbled up by the cavernous chapel. Though the acoustic blurred all before it, the faulty intonation and out of time string-playing still detracted from the performance to such an extent that any semblance of nuance when straight out of the (stained glass) window. The first violins made that squeaky sound which occurs when some players fail to scramble high enough to a top note and the horns were far from majestic. The last chord told the whole story: nearly bearable, but not quite.

One of the advantages of James Long's Chaconne was that it was more difficult to tell whether the right notes were being played or not. Its long sustained dischords worked well with the resonance of the space, and tempting aural snippets of Shostakovich and Ligeti were all flying around, reaching a dystopic tritonal climax. The dance section which followed was more easy on the ear with some form of identifiable melody, wafted gently over the audience by the nine players. As contemporary music goes, this was very endurable, but it's certainly not going on my iPod.

Brahms's Ein Deutsches Requiem brings together passages from Luther's translation of the Bible and was bravely sung in German by the King's Voices. The opening was unexpectedly beautiful and the balance between the forces was excellent throughout. Problems were to be had, however, with sloppy consonants and straining of tenors and sopranos to reach their upper registers. There seemed to be a lack of enthusiasm, excepting a jolly fine bass effort, and this reflected in the music. The two redeeming features of the concert were the magnificent baritone solo part, as sung by King's chaplain, Richard Lloyd Morgan and some finely crafted wind solos, notably flute (Alfredo Deano) and oboe (Emily Ross). The chorus no doubt went away with a huge adrenaline rush and sense of achievement, but the only shiver down the audience's spines was brought on by the February cold.

By Andrew Browning