In 16th-century Venice ceremonial occasions were lavish affairs, in which music played an increasingly important part, especially after the installation of Marino Grimani as doge in 1597. A reconstruction of one of those state events, the coronation of Grimani himself, was one of the first great successes of Paul McCreesh's Gabrieli Consort, a project that eventually appeared on disc 15 years ago. The occasion of the reopening of Christchurch, Spitalfields, fortunately persuaded them to perform it again.

Hawksmoor's wonderfully restored church may not look a lot like St Mark's in Venice, but it does have high galleries running along either side of the nave, and these provide the opportunities for the spatial effects that were such an important feature of Venetian choral music in the late renaissance. With singers, sackbuts and cornetts deployed in ever-changing arrays above and about the audience, McCreesh ensured that no antiphonal possibility was ignored. The sequence of plainsong, choral numbers and instrumental toccatas, canzonas and sonatas followed the plan of the liturgy known to have been used for such coronations, though some of the music chosen by McCreesh was inevitably speculative.

Music by the two Gabrielis - Andrea and his nephew Giovanni - (both of whom were organists in their time at St Mark's) provided the backbone, with Andrea's wonderfully contained motet O Sacrum Convivium, composed in 1565, and Giovanni's sumptuous 10-part Deus Qui Beatum Marcum from 1597 being two of the highlights. But every number was there for a reason, whether it was one of Giovanni Gabrieli's sonatas, a brass toccata by the Swedish trumpeter Magnus Thomsen or an arrangement for two organs of a piece by Cesario Gussago. All absolutely fascinating, and wonderfully played by the instrumentalists and all-male choir of the Gabrieli Consort