Sala: Oslo Cathedral

John Butt and the Dunedin Consort closed the Oslo Church Music Festival with fine performances of CPE Bach and Mozart, even though the concert didn't prove quite as innovative as advertised.

The Balthasar-Neumann-Chor and Ensemble performed a deeply moving, if slightly uneven, St John Passion, setting off the Oslo Church Music Festival.

Ottavio Dantone, the Accademia Bizantina and the Norwegian Soloists' Choir gave a strong performance of Handel's oratorio Belshazzar.

A stunning performance of virtuosic ensemble singing by Collegium Vocale Gent to open the 16th Oslo International Church Music Festival

The Italian male choir Ensemble Adhecaton gave a wonderful performance of Renaissance motets and Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli at the Oslo International Church Music Festival.

Opening the Oslo International Church Music Festival with excerpts of a secular opera, Skip Sempé and Capriccio Stravagante fail to impress with their performance of Campra's L'Europe galante.

Pairing Mendelssohn’s Fifth Symphony, the so-called “Reformation Symphony”, and Bruckner’s Third Mass in F minor seemed to me at first a rather novel, but very interesting idea. It was perhaps not the most daring of programmes, but certainly a very interesting one, picking a symphony steeped in Protestant tradition and then a Catholic mass.

It would seem that Easter has come early to Oslo. Friday marked the opening of the Oslo International Church Music Festival, a festival that this year is devoted to the ever-paschal theme of the passion. The opening concert was held in the Oslo Cathedral and was sung by the British vocal ensemble The Tallis Scholars.The concert focused on passion, in both senses of the word.