Bach Musica's Monteverdi Vespers at the Holy Trinity Cathedral

By WILLIAM DART

Bach Musica's account of Monteverdi's Vespers must stand as the high point of the group's 2004 season, and one of the most enterprising choral concerts the city has heard this year.

The dynamic Rita Paczian tackled this monumental score six years ago, with ad hoc choir and orchestra. On Sunday she revisited the piece, conducting her own forces and, it must be admitted, a stronger line-up of soloists.

Casual listeners might have been surprised to hear echoes from Monteverdi's Orfeo here. The opening Toccata from the opera launches the Vespers, cunningly disguised as Deus ad adiuvandum me. Under Paczian's baton, it was a blaze of glorious sound, of primal brass sonorities and lusty choral singing.

The choristers exuded enthusiasm to the last voice. The ensuing Dixit Dominus was fearlessly tackled and, a little further into the work, tenors fair whooped it up for the Lauda Jerusalem. Louder and more exciting, they and the choir could not have been.

These robust-voiced singers were a good match for Graham McPhail's well-disciplined orchestra. True, the closing Magnificat exposed some unwanted edges in both brass and strings, but I was more disturbed by the lack of oboes in the band.

Sweet recorders are no substitute and, at one point, the two soprano soloists struggled to project their voices over trumpets.

Although all seven soloists were in good voice, the sopranos and tenors are most favoured by Monteverdi.

Sopranos Lisette Wesseling and Nicola Edgecombe, both recently returned to this country, sang like angels in their Pulchra es.

Australian Gregory Massingham, who joined the contingent at the 11th hour, combined intelligence and a clear tenor. He thrilled in Nigra sum, with Paczian herself at harpsichord, was well-moulded and, in the final Gloria, pushed his florid line to the border of cantillation.

After interval, tiredness set in. The opening Sonata on Sancta Maria ora pro nobis, with the plainchant punched out by the women singers, was loosely handled, and there were more lacklustre lapses.

But, in the last few minutes, Paczian was once more triumphant, with a Sicut erat in principio as impassioned as anyone could wish for.