NCC/Ortner:National Gallery, Dublin

Hungarians of the 20th century dominated the National Chamber Choir's programme under Erwin Ortner at the National Gallery on Thursday, with 19th-century contrast being provided by Brahms and Dvorak.

There was another source of contrast, too. György Ligeti's unaccompanied works Magány (Solitude) and Pápainé (Widow Pápai) of 1946 and 1953, and his Fantasias after Hölderlin from 1982 - were interleaved with pieces accompanied by piano.

The best of these were Bartók's Slovakian Folksongs, pithy settings, full of good feeling in spite of their brevity, and the choir, accompanied by Fergal Caulfield on piano, who delivered them with a delicacy and vitality that eclipsed their performances of Brahms (the Four Quartets, Op. 92) and Dvorak (the choral arrangements of the Moravian Duets known as Klänge aus Mähren).

The early Ligeti pieces were both written at a time when folk-music was an important inspiration (though Pápainé was forbidden in the Hungary of the time for "excessive dissonance"). The late Hölderlin settings are emotionally raw ("over-wrought" in the composer's own description), and wind themselves up into knots of almost unbearable tension, which the audience greeted with an enthusiasm to match. MICHAEL DERVAN