Scott Cantrell

You'll not hear choral singing more gorgeous – more fastidiously formed, balanced and buffed – than that produced Sunday evening by the Orpheus Chamber Singers. And it washed lusciously through the Cathedral Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the area's one setting with the reverberation of the European churches and cathedrals for which so much great choral music was conceived.

Artistic director Donald Krehbiel had devised a typically stimulating program, starting with an anonymous Peruvian hymn sung, drum-accompanied, in procession. A Kyrie and Gloria from a mass by the 17th-century Mexican composer Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla suggested a slightly popularized version of the polyphony and echo effects favored by the earlier Spaniard Tomás Luis de Victoria.

The 20th and 21st centuries supplied most of the program. Particularly striking were two part songs by the Englishman Julian Anderson, both effectively superimposing glowing harmonies on more rhythmic activity. "Beautiful valley of Eden" had sopranos, altos, tenors and basses doing their different things in separate groups in the transepts.

Two part songs by the contemporary American Eric Whitacre, "Water and Night" and "A Boy and a Girl," were downright voluptuous. Two others were of lesser quality.

All this was splendidly sung, as were unaccompanied motets by two earlier Englishmen. But William H. Harris' "Faire is the heaven" and "Bring us, O Lord" were too hurried, especially for such a resonant setting. Herbert Howells' "Take Him, Earth, for Cherishing," a memorial to President John F. Kennedy, was rushed, too; check the composer's metronome markings. Dramatic changes of harmony were given no time to tell, and marked slowdowns were ignored.

A week and a half earlier, the Choir of King's College, Cambridge sang the Howells in the same space. The British choir made this deeply felt, elegantly crafted music emotionally devastating. Mr. Krehbiel was content with gorgeous choral singing.