Though not as mesmerisingly theatrical as Tondal's Vision, the Bank of Scotland Herald Angel-winning all-female choral work Katarina Livljanic and her group Dialogos brought to the Canongate Kirk, Dalmatica left few corners of Greyfriars unexplored for acoustic possibilities.
A quartet from Dialogos were teamed with the six men of Josko Caleta's Kantaduri for an unaccompanied sequence of sacred chants, antiphons and Biblical text settings from the Adriatic. More specifically they are from the Dalmatian coast of Livljanic's native Croatia, beginning with an Advent chant, with its origins in antiquity, from the holiday destination of Split.
The journey then, through 28 pieces that resulted in a concert almost half as long again as billed, was from Christmas to Easter, in a mix of Latin and local language (the men sticking to the latter), embracing all 10 singers, smaller groups drawn from within them, and a handful of solos.
It was also a journey through the best part of a millennium of music, from those early chants to an arrangement of a Marian prayer from the 17th century in which the cadences were the most familiar, and certainly among the most beautiful.
The scholarship on display was as impressive as the musicianship, but as groups of men and women succeeded one another from stations diagonally across the building or processed once again to gather on the stage, it was the distinct timbre of these voices individually and in combination that made the more profound impression. As the programme built to a climax, the chants, antiphons and prayers overlapped, with one choir underscoring the other, until they came together to end in unison.
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