IT WAS foolhardy of the adult choir and wind ensemble of St Eugene's Cathedral Derry, under their director Donal Doherty, to attempt Bruckner's Mass in E minor.

This work mercilessly exposed their technical inadequacies and threw into high relief the inability of both singers and instrumentalists to agree on matters of rhythm and intonation.

The Mass, the principal item in last night's concert at the Dublin International Organ and Choral Festival was a catastrophe.

A more favourable impression was made by the Cathedral's boys' choir, particularly in the elaborate Gregorian chant Haec dies and in their contribution to the works for combined choirs, Kevin O'Connell's Psalm 150 and Ian Wilson's A shaking and a planting, from the Book of Amos.

Both these pieces were performed with a confidence, born perhaps of familiarity, that was unfortunately absent from the Bruckner and would have graced those services of Matins and Vespers for which they were originally commissioned.

Music making of an altogether higher order was provided by Ben van Oosten, who played Widor's Symphonic Romane, a very long work based on the Gregorian chant Haec dies. Despite Van Oosten's skill, however, he was unable to lift the music clear of its ultimately tedious reliance on the chant, and, indeed, the performance could have been a demonstration of the faults of Widor's aesthetic.

Though the concert was nearly two and a half hours long there was little that one could wholeheartedly approve of, except the rich tones of the organ, newly restored and rebuilt by Trevor Crowe of Dublin.