Catch 22 for choral societies! The perennial battle between artistic and financial constraints - how to maintain an audience and yet extend the repertoire? Without the inclusion of Handel's Messiah, the Requiem by Fauré and, dare one say, Carmina Burana in every season how can a society hope to balance its books? And yet how can the repetition of such popular works maintain the interest of the performing members. Brave is the society (or rich) that can regularly perform unfamiliar repertoire, commission new works and still hope to have an audience at the end - some do manage this, however. So, here are a few suggestions as to how to balance the necessary with the adventurous.

Messiah always draws an audience, but why perform the whole work at one concert? An enterprising school - perhaps out of necessity - performed Part One in the autumn term, Part Two in the Easter term and the final part in the summer term: By including the Hallelujah Chorus in each concert the punters were happy and it gave the performers scope to sing something else in each concert.

What other options could there be? Firstly, there is the cop-out; an orchestral piece. Secondly, there is the compromise; let the soloists sing a few items, remembering that, in this arrangement, there is no need to employ four soloists for each concert. Most singers are willing to contribute a familiar 'party-piece' and some even have their own orchestral parts, or access to them. The best option is for another choral piece. There is a myriad of music with a similar orchestration - strings, oboes and continuo - from the baroque period, but also Mozart and Haydn (the unjustly neglected Stabat Mater). There are some delightful motets by the former which are hardly ever heard - Inter natos mulierum for instance - and also Schubert, his early Mass in F and other small-scale motets.

In combination with the Fauré - given the strings, harp and organ arrangement - with the simple addition of a cymbal then Finzi's InTerra Pax is a possibility (and it gives the two soloists more to do): This combination works best with an All Souls/Christmas concert obviously. Or, with the same forces (minus the harp and cymbal) the Vaughan-Williams Five Mystical Songs deserve more frequent airings then they receive and are both rewarding and easy for the chorus: Similarly his cantata The First Nowell. In other circumstances (with the harp) Janacek's Očenas (Lord's Prayer) is worth performing, although it does require a tenor soloist.

If there has been a large orchestra used, for example in Tippett's A Child of our Time - a work that is almost too long for one half but too short for a full concert - then the possibilities are endless, although more expensive. There are other such works which fall into this category: Dvoŕak's Stabat Mater, Brahms' Requiem...perhaps even Elgar's Dream of Gerontius, which I have experienced as Part Two of a concert! The Bruckner and Bizet Te Deum are for similar orchestral forces and are short and yet substantial enough to balance such a programme. But what does one programme with the two-piano/harmonium version of Rossini's Petite Messe? - the Field Mass of Martinu certainly uses a harmonium (only!) and there could be a selection from the Brahms' Liebesliederwalzer(piano duet).

What of large-scale works that should be popular but which are rarely heard? César Franck's Béatitudes and King David or Une Cantate de Noël by Honegger need resurrecting and who will be brave enough to broach Delius - Sea Drift or even A Mass of Life - huge pieces, but once standard fare for large societies? I am not suggesting a return to the Royal Choral Society's annual costumed and staged Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, but there are also some fun pieces available.

However, this does help to 'balance the books', even though there is an audience which is more likely to come to something obscure than something familiar. There is a final solution to this problem, and one which tends to cause as many problems as it increases the size of the audience - a children's choir! The inclusion of such a group not only would sweeten the financial pill of the Honegger Cantate and works such as Martinu's Kytiče, but it allows for the most vital of all performances - the new work. Rather than rely on tried and tested works, why not risk something by Ron Corp, Cecelia MacDowall or Bob Chilcott - each of whom writes very approachable music for adults and children; if you are still unsure of their drawing power, add a work by John Rutter, whose popularity is nothing short of incredible.

The goal of any society must be to get an audience to trust its judgement and to know that, however unfamiliar the work, there will always be a good concert: Part of your audience will be present as much out of duty as pleasure but there are other ears that are ready and (unwittingly) willing for harvest.