By John Gough

I left this magnificent concert with Ex Cathedra at the Birmingham Oratory with mingled feelings of exaltation and frustration. The frustration was due to the news that this was the last such concert at this remarkable venue.

The authorities have decided that the church is no longer to be available for concerts, but the reasons for their decision are characteristically opaque.

All the concert programme had by way of explanation was that “this is partly because of a directive issued by the Vatican in the 1980s, which we have been rather slow to catch up with”. How was such a decision taken, and why?

The core of the concert was of Venetian music written to celebrate the birth of Louis XIV, the Sun King. Yet again Jeffrey Skidmore guided his choir through a programme of largely unknown early baroque works with stunning success. Music of a golden age performed in ideally gilded surroundings.

Giovanni Rovetta, born in Venice, a singer, violinist and composer and soon to follow Monteverdi at St Mark’s, composed a Vespers sequence to mark the great state occasion prompted by the birth.

The performance was ideal for Vespers – intended to mark the end of the day with candlelight and consecrating the evening to God – as we were enveloped in the candles, the incense, the music, and the reverence of the building. This was fine music, lively and full of Venetian colour, drama, structure and variety. There were many highlights as the richness of the full choir was contrasted endlessly with the agility and energy of overlapping solo voices and the many instrumental interludes from the small accompanying consort of two violins, cello, organ and a gently pattering theorbo.

After this display of virtuosity, vibrant colour and dynamic energy the concert concluded with four pieces reflecting the choir’s work at the Oratory over the last 30 years and I was greatly moved by the piercing dissonances and reflective melancholy of Lotti’s Crucifixus a 8.

It seems so unjust that the jewel that is Ex Cathedra will have to find a new setting for its performances of this repertoire so suited to the splendour of the Oratory. As the capacity audience, wonderfully attentive throughout, waited in stillness until the Choir’s recessional hymn became finally inaudible in the distance, the evening ended with the sound of thunderous applause, poignantly addressed to an entirely empty platform.