“Vespers from Venice” at Holy Trinity Church, Long Melford (5 July 2022) was presented at the hour of vespers as part of Martin Randall Travels’ ‘Music in Suffolk Churches” Festival. Partnering I Fagiolini was the English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble. Their combined forces brought full-throated, exhilarating musicianship to the re-imagining of a Venetian liturgical event in an English parish church. The breathtaking emotional impact must have stirred even the most latent spirituality. Use of such resources as were available - a pulpit, the mysterious hidden spaces of the chancel - conjured up theatrically a sense of the emotional drama inside the liturgy. Across the centuries music at nightfall bound Venice and Suffolk in something like heart-stopping rapture.
Derek Nicholls
8 July ‘22.