TODAY was St Cecilia's Day, dedicated to music's patron saint, who was martyred in early 3rd century Rome. York Cantores opened their season on Saturday with a concert in her honour, a splendid idea given the huge number of composers she has inspired.

Cantores, under Marion Best, is carving out a distinctive niche in York's crowded choral scene by using a mere 17 singers, an admirable, if high-risk, policy that puts a premium on the individual singer's contribution. This paid handsome dividends in James Macmillan's Christus Vincit (1994), where the solo sopranos maintained crystalline tone at the top of their ranges, within an intimate ambience.

It was not quite so successful in Purcell's rousing Te Deum in D, written for the 1694 St Cecilia observances, where lower-voiced soloists are more mercilessly exposed. Vouchsafe, however, had a prayerful air and the trumpet colours were skilfully touched in by Geoffrey Coffin, playing the bright organ he himself has recently refurbished.

The long lines of Howells's charming A Hymn for St Cecilia (1960) were most engaging. Only slightly less so was Alan Woods's unaccompanied Ode On St Cecilia's Day, though it suffered from following Finzi's stirring God Is Gone Up, whose harmonic idiom it largely imitates.

The choir danced neatly through Britten's A Hymn to St Cecilia, without ever quite transcending Auden's pretentious poetry. Mr Coffin injected two spirited contributions, a Stanford postlude and Simon Preston's earthy Alleluyas. A stimulating evening that fell just short of real excitement.

Updated: 12:09 Monday, November 22, 2004