One of many

If I search it right, IMSLP offers a list of 89 Stabat Maters by different composers so the annual SM performance by Adhoc Baroque has a few years to run yet. This year the composer was Alessandro Scarlatti (his son, Domenico, later wrote a better known setting). The text was by Jacopone del Todi and recounts the grief of mother Mary at the cross of Jesus. It's a deeply touching thought and thus taken frequently as a theme. The work itself comprises 19 short stanzas, sung by soprano and mezzo-soprano, Greta and Maartje, with accompaniment from organ, two violins and cello. The movements were short, often just a single reading of the text, perhaps a minute or two, sung by one or other or both vocalists. I particularly enjoyed the harmonised singing. Greta and Maartje both present well as soloists but I was particularly taken by their harmony singing in this performance: harmonising, contrapuntal, always clear and well formed, deliciously intoned and fluidly melding. The accompanying organ was discrete, the two higher strings playful and the cello firm and forward moving. In the notes, Peter highlights harmonic and melodic twists in this music with echoes in more modern music: he specifically mentions an off-beat melody in one movement which I remember hearing as an oddity (or error?) on the day. Otherwise, the group, with cello replaced by viola da gamba, performed three pieces before interval - a melancholy motet by Stradella, one of 1750 surviving church cantatas from Telemann and a lively playful piece from Buxtehude - with mezzo, soprano and paired voices. Again, some great playing and very satisfying singing of this unpretentious and deeply faithful C17th music. May the series continue till its natural end!

Adhoc Baroque performed Stradella, Telemann, Buxtehude and a Stabat Mater by Alessandro Scarlatti at St Paul's Manuka. The group comprised Greta Claringbould (soprano), Maartje Sevenster (mezzo-soprano), Lauren Davis and Michelle Hicks (violins), Rachel Walker (viola da gamba), Clara Teniswood (cello) and Peter Young (organ, director).

Guts

Limestone Consort are one of my local favourites. It's a small mostly baroque group that performs in the wonderful All Saints in Ainslie with its hints at deep, or at least mediaeval, European time. Eminently suitable for baroque concerts. This one was Limestone's first with gut and period bows for the gentle, earthy, authentic tones (and the more frequent tuning). Limestone will be playing at the upcoming Canowindra Baroquefest and they were preparing their program of Trio sonatas for that outing. Corelli, Mondonville, Stradella, Pachelbel, Purcell, Rosenmuler, Telemann and Handel. This was some very stately and dignified music played very capably and with much joy. Leader Lauren can smile with joy when performing. Otherwise it seemed like there was a good deal of quiet concentration, although I heard afterwards of some grins that might have ruined Olivia's embouchure (string players have it easy for making faces). We always learn something from Lauren's intros. She introduced trios in this context as two upper parts with basso continuo accompaniment. She touched on early, middle and late baroque and styles in Italy or France, perhaps England and Germany and we heard something of biographies, of Stradella as the embezzler and ladies' man and the first failed assassination attempt on him and the successful second (angry husbands, I guess), of Telemann as the most prolific of composers who was also the godfather of CPE Bach, of Purcell's inventive chords or comparisons of Corelli's Italian and Mondeville's later French styles. And the lineup was a little changed. This was two violins, cello, bass, baroque organ, with sometimes a recorder replacing the second violin. Flauto, or recorder, is a delightful and certainly period sound and quite a change from the otherwise string sounds. The responding top lines sound very differently from recorder/violin compared with two violins. I also noticed that the mix was quite bottom heavy, with double bass and cello, presumably unison but the bass an octave lower, assisted with the organ that would have also been playing continuo, although that's an unassuming sound. There's quite a pitch difference there with no intervening viola. So soft but with considerable range. And, as ever, such a pleasure. Limestone is a lovely local group. I enjoyed this immensely and no doubt Canowindra will too.

Limestone Consort performed baroque trio sonatas at All Saints Ainslie. This incarnation comprised Lauren Davis and Michelle Hicks (violins), Olivia Gossip (recorder), Clara Teniswood (cello), David Flynn (bass) and James Porteous (chamber organ).