Gabrieli Group Presents Beguiling Baroque

Context wasn’t everything Sunday afternoon at Wilshire Christian Church. Performances as full of wonders as those of the Gabrieli Consort & Players, in their local debut courtesy of Chamber Music in Historic Sites and the Da Camera Society of Mount St. Mary’s College, would not fail to have an impact in any situation.

But the program assembled by director Paul McCreesh certainly helped the listener integrate its early Baroque beguilements. Using bits of plainchant and little organ interludes, McCreesh linked a diversified group of psalm settings and Marian motets into a liturgically viable Venetian Vespers, circa 1640. It was simulated through music only, although the church architecture added an appropriate sense of place and the audience did its part by attending to the proceedings without intermission or applause.

Monteverdi was the leading musical figure in Venice at the time, and the agenda included two of his concertato psalms and a solo hymn and solo motet, sung with plangent, pointed grace by bass Simon Grant and tenor Julian Podger, respectively. Alessandro Grandi and Francesco Cavalli are almost as well-known to period enthusiasts, and each was represented by striking works: Grandi by solo motets sung with pure tone and joyful agility by sopranos Linda Perillo and Susan Hemington Jones; Cavalli by the dramatic concertato psalm “Lauda Jerusalem,� enlisting the full ensemble--eight singers and seven instrumentalists--to stunning effect.

But the ear-bogglingly beautiful music of one Giovanni Antonio Rigatti probably came as a surprise to just about everyone. His concertato Magnificat sounded like a spirited vocal dance suite, and his setting of “Nisi Dominus� was a trio of operatic opulence. The event ended in the hushed raptures of Rigatti’s “Salve regina,� sung with sensual sweetness by tenor John Bowen and Grant.

Another unheralded composer, Giacomo Finetti, supplied another ravishing motet, “O Maria quae rapis,� voluptuously sung by tenors Bowen and Podger. Violinists Anna McDonald and Julia Bishop had an overlong bit, a gimmickry by Biagio Marini, to display their strong talents, and Timothy Roberts tended capably to the modest organ interludes.