Music / Limestone Consort. At St Paul’s, Manuka, on October 15. Reviewed by GRAHAM McDONALD.

THE idea behind this concert was a desire to perform Antonio Vivaldi’s cantata “Nisi Dominus, RV 803”, a setting of eight short biblical texts each with a different combination of instrumental accompaniment from 1739, which has only been recently re-discovered in a German library.

One section calls for the use of a viola d’amore and as Canberra now has a resident viola d’amore player in John Ma, the rest of the program made good use of its availability. 

In addition to Ma, the Limestone Consort for this concert comprised of violinists Lauren Davis and Michelle Higgs, cellist Clara Teniswood, Ariana Odermatt on keyboards , Jennifer Brian on a wooden flute with singers Maartje Sevenster, Veronica Twaites-Brown and Greta Claringbould.

The concert opened with a concerto for flute and viola d’amore in D minor by the German composer Christoph Graupner, a contemporary of JS Bach. 

This oddly started with a very slow movement that posed a few challenges to the players, but the cohesion soon came with some delightful interplay between the flute and viola d’amore. 

This was followed by alto Maartje Sevenster singing two arias by Vivaldi from an oratorio, “Juditha Triumphans” and an opera, “Tito Manlio”. The first was very pretty with the voice and the flute in duet and the second using only the viola d’amore and one violin as accompaniment. This too was an attractive work with fine singing and playing.

A Ciaccona, Op 7 by another Italian composer Giovanni Batista Vitali provided an instrumental interlude with Davis and Ma playing violin with much obvious enjoyment and sprightly continuo from Teniswood and Odermatt on harpsichord.

The “Nisi Dominus” concluded the concert with a mix of solo, duo and trios from the three singers with Odermatt shifting to a small electronic organ that provided a varied tonal colour to the performance especially in the seventh section where she used the upper register for rippling arpeggiated chords. 

All in all, a charming work and very nicely done. The Limestone Consort does seem to perform all that often, but its well-researched concerts of baroque chamber music are worth watching out for.