Scott Cantrell

The most poignant eight minutes of the whole concert season may have transpired Thursday evening. In the city where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, the Cathedral Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe resonated to English composer Herbert Howells' exquisitely moving motet in Kennedy's memory.

It was a particularly touching gesture from the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, which sang quite a varied program, and sang most of it very well indeed.

"Take him, earth, for cherishing," the Howells begins, in Helen Waddell's eloquent rendering of a Latin text by the fourth-century poet Prudentius. And line after line is no less eloquently expressed in music: lost paradise opened by trebles and altos floating above; the evil serpent weaving a sinuous bass line; time wearing away bones in turbulent counterpoint; the shining road to paradise opened in a magical upward key shift.

Tuning all those harmonic subtleties is difficult, as is sustaining tension through all the shifts of mood and texture. But, led by Stephen Cleobury, the choir's director since 1982, this was a dramatic and emotionally gripping performance.

The cathedral's air conditioning rumbled loudly, but the spacious nave wrapped the singing in a warm, rich wash of reverberation.

The program opened with three motets from England's Tudor period: the exuberant Thomas Weelkes "I heard a voice" and Orlando Gibbons "O clap your hands," and Thomas Tomkins' aching "When David heard." From the 20th century came anthems by Vaughan Williams and Lennox Berkeley. Brett Dean's 2007 carol "Now Comes the Dawn" transfigured the text's vaporous light into complex, lustrous harmonies.

The trebles still produce the satin-finished tone for which the King's choir has long been famous. If anything, the boys could have used more support and projection to balance some pretty aggressive men – one bass in particular.

The Bach motet Komm, Jesu, komm was a little flabby in places, and some of the trickier spots in Francis Poulenc's Christmas motets weren't quite spot-on. But in general this was powerful, expressive singing in a glorious acoustic, for which thanks were also due the sponsor: Southern Methodist University's Perkins School of Theology.

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