Musica Sacra at Church of the Holy Sepulchre

By WILLIAM DART

Indra Hughes and his Musica Sacra have built a solid and loyal following and, judging by the cheers and applause, many in Saturday's audience were blissfully unaware of any musical shortcomings.

Haydn's Trumpet Concerto should have been a tasty entre, but wasn't. A lacklustre soloist in Philip Lloyd didn't help, with far too many fluffed notes but, overall, tempi were tepid. To my horror, the small orchestra, drawn from the ranks of the Auckland Philharmonia, came up with some of the smudgiest violin lines I have heard this side of a school orchestra.

Most disturbing of all was an impromptu divertissement of a percussive nature created by late-comers rattling and scraping the garden furniture at the back of the church for a good eight bars of the Andante.

Organist Woo-sug Kang gave us Mozart's late F minor Fantasia. Written for mechanical organ, it's not an easy play - or an easy listen. Despite ingenious registration, an idiomatic performance was undercut by the occasional scruffiness and the need for a stronger pulse in the Andante.

Mozart's Exsultate Jubilate completed the first half of the concert. This motet is joy incarnate, written by a 17-year old composer flushed with his discoveries in the world of opera.

Soprano Lisette Wesseling gave a careful performance, cold in tone, nervous in moments of coloratura. The final Vivace simply needed more calories.

The evening ended with Haydn's great Nelson Mass, or, to use its alternative title, Mass in Times of Anguish, with most of the anguish being provided by the violins (risibly in the "Dona nobis pacem").

Musica Sacra have sung better. Overall, there was a lack of feeling for the moulding of phrases, despite Hughes' expressive direction; too often brute noise stood in for finesse.

The control and sure tone of the Sanctus revealed what the concert should and could have been.

There was mellifluous duetting between both Wesseling and Margo Knightbridge, echoed by Iain Tetley and David Griffiths. Solo contributions were mainly solid, although Wesseling seemed to be struggling with her demanding part.

Perhaps next time the group will investigate one of the simpler but no less rewarding Masses of the period.