As director Richard Neville-Towle pointed out in his brief introduction, the change of venue brought with it a new, drier acoustic, which would serve to reveal more clearly the intricate layers of music. Most of the time this was positive, with the tutti sections gaining an enhanced clarity and impact that readily conveyed the joyful mood central to the work. In more exposed orchestral passages, the players, wrestling with the vagaries of their period instruments, missed the forgivingly reverberant environment of the Kirk. Musically, the instrumental sections felt in need of the homogenising effect that a more generous acoustic would have provided, particularly in the gorgeous Sinfonia at the opening of the second Cantata.