Performer: Susan Hamilton

Deft programming, fine arrangements and playing from Mr McFall's Chamber and guest soprano Susan Hamilton.

The Dunedin Consort are, as I write, engaged in recording Bach's Brandenburg Concertos. On the eve of this undertaking, they presented the third and final part of their Brandenburg/Cantata series. The format of paired concerto and cantata in either half contained a novelty: this was the first time I'd heard the consort play a composer other than Bach.

Contrasting vocal and instrumental, sacred and secular, the Dunedin Consort's 'Brandenburg/Cantata Series II' featured two of Bach's popular concerti grossi, flanked by a pair of sacred cantatas.Instrumental contrast distinguished the cantatas as much as the concerti.

There's nothing like a Brandenburg to blow away Christmas cobwebs. Alongside contrasting cantatas, the Dunedin Consort offered the 3rd and 5th from Bach's 1721 set of six concerti grossi. This made for a compact and nicely balanced programme, contrasting the sacred with the secular and vocal with purely instrumental timbres.

The Dunedin Consort and Players is running a series of three concerts over the coming months, each programming two of Bach’s Brandenberg Concertos interspersed with two Cantatas. Although strictly speaking still in Advent, when Leipzig frowned on elaborate church music, a large crowd turned out to hear this imaginative all-Bach programme for this Christmas season in Perth Concert Hall.