It would be difficult to imagine a better program than this Easter offering to showcase Joseph Nolan’s penchant for wringing every drop of colour and drama from the music he plays or conducts. Indeed, as booklet note author Yvonne Frindle writes, “There is something intrinsically theatrical in both the Vivaldi and the Handel works … we experience Italianate fire and extravagance.”

However, before exploding in Technicolor, this near sold-out concert began in mournful monochrome as acclaimed organist and choral conductor Nolan coaxed from the superb St Georges Cathedral Consort a moving rendition of English Renaissance composer Thomas Weelkes’ sacred madrigal, When David Heard.

Joseph Nolan conducts St George’s Cathedral Consort and WASO’s Gloria. Photo © Rebecca Mansell

Weelkes’ six-part setting of the Old Testament’s 2 Sam 18:33, in which King David laments the death of his son, Absalom, is a concise study in communicating paternal grief through music. Nolan’s achievement here was to recognise and relate the perfection of Weelkes’ art straining against the inexpressible.

Vivaldi’s celebrated c.1715 concertato setting of the mass’s Gloria, RV589, barely needs any introduction: the challenge in performance, as Nolan points out, is to make it sound...