Charm rather than calm represents relief from the frequent tumult of Gounod's St Cecilia Mass and Bizet's Te Deum.

The two opera composers perhaps needed to distance themselves from the stage before they could achieve the careless religious devotion that Rossini managed late in life.

So for tranquility in this enterprising concert of French music, the nicely-tuned and resourceful Singers settled on a capella miniatures by Saint-Saens, the Two Chorales of his Opus 68.

With the Welsh Sinfonia and organist Martyn Ridge at rest, conductor Alan Moore was able to concentrate successfully on sculpting a refined and balanced sound that showed the choir at its galvanised best.

So too in Faure's Cantique de Jean Racine and Pavane with their more restrained orchestrations, the latter performed in its choral version.

The two main works presented knottier problems of equivalence in places where some of the composer's orchestral material can swamp a chorus unable to meet it head on.

To the rescue in the Gounod work came soprano Anne Price Jones, tenor Tim Ford and bass Guy Harbottle, seemingly to leaven its quasi-operatic sentiment, singly if not so much as a wedded trio. In the Te Deum, mezzo Alyson Jones and tenor Don Smith rose musically to the occasion Bizet intended.

Gounod required the chorus to be loudest in passages easiest to sing, whereas Bizet offered diverting instrumental variety that obliged it to stay in the frame.

The charm in both works is fleeting, so all praise to the choir for catching it on the wing.