Brooklyn-based Mark Morris is possibly the most hyped choreographer working today: "This is the Mozart of our time, and he's eating a salami sandwich next to me!" his company's starstruck director of development remarks in the programme notes for this 25th anniversary UK tour.

So it was a little disconcerting to discover that the most recent of the four pieces in the programme presented at the Hippodrome, Candleflowerdance (premiered last month) is a bit dull.

An unremarkable study in ensemble movement, it is performed to one of Stravinsky's more obscure trifles, the Serenade in A for piano.

Morris notes that this piece was commissioned by a record company, with each movement tailored to a 78 rpm record side.

This corresponds with his favoured musical format, though his choice of pieces - all given exemplary live performances by the company's musicians - is eclectic, ranging from Stephen Foster to Bartok.

The Foster songs, charmingly performed by a vocal quartet and string trio, provided the basis for Somebody's Coming to See Me Tonight, where the costumes evoke the pioneer setting of Appalachian Spring but the surprisingly classical choreography has no particular narrative thread. Although the selection of songs includes the famous Beautiful Dreamer it revealed how unfamiliar Foster's music is on this side of the Atlantic: the word "Americana" is often used, but the flavour is more Victorian parlour.

The best piece, however, was 2003's All Fours, an exhilarating interpretation of Bartok's String Quartet No 4. It captures much of the brittle rhythmic drive and subtle nuance of Bartok's music - brilliantly played here - and that's saying something.

Possibly best of all was the thrilling duet to the second, pizzicato, scherzo. There was a moment in the first movement when a connection with Stravinsky's Rite of Spring suddenly seemed to emerge. And in the concluding Grand Duo, on the stage where Birmingham Royal Ballet gave the first performance by a British company of a New Yorker's reconstruction of Nijinsky's choreography in June, here was a Rite-style round dance.

With a style evocative of ancient rituals, the male dancers in skirts and bare chests, this big and energetic piece is set to Lou Harrison's distinctly Bartokian Grand Duo for violin and piano, a piece only five years old when Morris created the choreography in 1993.

It reinforced the impression that his work is at its best when the musical tension is well wound-up.