Irvine’s Schutz-Purcell Program: Warm but Flawed : The impact of the little-done German works was lessened by the Camerata’s inconsistencies. Other compositions fared better.

IRVINE — In an ideal world, the music of Heinrich Schutz would be sung constantly, at least in some nook or cranny, so wondrous is it. Lacking that, we must be grateful to conductor Robert Hickok and his Irvine Camerata for a Schutz-Purcell program Wednesday at the Irvine Barclay Theatre.

But nagging insufficiencies lessened the impact.

The Camerata was consistently inconsistent. Secure passages were followed by insecure ones. Momentum flagged. Strength and conviction were sometimes things.

Soloists often lacked the ease, agility and beauty of tone mandatory in such exposed repertory. Almost everyone’s German was indifferently articulated.

Hickok over-conducted. He had so many ideas, apparently, that he could not let a measure go by without some shaping or shift in dynamic. Perhaps the singers felt burdened.

Overall, Hickok promoted an attractively warm, rolling choral sound. He advocated bold, expressive contrasts and inflection of text, although not always to its profit.

He also reconfigured the seating of the group so frequently to exploit antiphonal effects that he quipped from the stage that the group would hire a choreographer for its next concert in May.

But only in the dramatic setting of Saul’s conversion (“Saul, was verfolgst du mich?”) did vocal purity and expressivity combine to bring us into the presence of Schutz’s sublime, innocent genius.

Elsewhere, for all the effort, only short sections of well-nourished sound and skillful part-singing did justice to the composer.

Blame too few concerts.

Purcell came off better, especially the good-natured men’s Catch from “The Knight of Malta” and the blazing “Benedicite Omnia Opera Domini” for full ensemble.

Mary Eileen Golden, Robert Poisner and Michael Geiger made an effectively dramatic, flexible and well-matched trio in “In Guilty Night.” Hickok gave two sopranos a chance to shine in un-conducted solo opportunities, taking a seat at the side of the stage as a bright-voiced Robyn Frey-Monell sang two settings of “If Music Be the Food of Love” (one sweet, one florid) and a vocally lapidary Sandra Walker sang “Bess of Bedlam.”

Providing continuo were harpsichordist John Steele Ritter, cellist Ian McKinnel and organist Imre Szilas. A small instrumental ensemble provided additional support as needed.

Hickok and company are only at the start of a project dedicated to this difficult, musically rewarding but commercially unprofitable repertory seldom heard locally. The 27-member group, founded in 1989, gave no concerts last year because there was no money. Its efforts should be encouraged.