Divine Rapture, directed by Peter Leech

Chamber Organ, Steven Hollas

Concert Review:  SATURDAY 20th JUNE 2009  

There was a good audience at South Petherton Parish Church for Taunton Camerata’s summer concert last Saturday, many of whom arrived early to hear a most informative pre-concert talk by their director, Peter Leech. The programme included a number of items by three seventeenth–century female Italian composers, all of whom were nuns, writing for their convents. It was clear from the start that their music was in no way inferior to that of their male contemporaries, and much of it could be mistaken at first hearing for Monteverdi.  

 It was refreshing to hear the choir approach this baroque period music in an appropriate style for the period. The vocal lines were generally well blended with good balance between the parts. The acoustic of the church was very well suited to much of the music, though a longer reverberation time would have helped in the slower items, and the choir could have been encouraged to sing more quietly at times.

Peter Leech demanded a high degree of precision and commitment from the singers, and they were particularly effective in the changes of tempo and metre demanded in much of the music. The various solo parts were well sung by members of the choir, supported by their excellent continuo chamber organist Steven Hollas who interspersed the programme with stylish period organ solos.

 Patrons please note: Taunton Camerata are changing their name to the Collegium Singers. No doubt in this new guise they will continue to entertain and stimulate their audiences in Somerset and further afield.

 Stephen Bell

Concert Programme

Domine ad adiuvandum me      Margarita Cozzolani (1602-c.1677)

Protector noster      Lucrezia Vizzana (1590-1662)

Toccata ottava      Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643)

Usquequo oblivisceris (Tenor solo)      Vizzana

Stabat mater       Sulpitia Cesis (1577- after 1619)

Toccata cromatica per le levatione        Frescobaldi

Nigra sum (Tenor solo)         Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)

Canzon         Johann Jakob Froberger (1616-67)

Domine Dominus noster (Ps. 8)        Vizzana

Beatus vir (Psalm 111)        Isabella Leonarda (1620- 1704)

Miserere in C minor (Ps. 51 – excerpts)     Johann Adolphe Hasse (1699-1783)

Magnificat in G minor RV 610a         Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)