Christmas Vespers as they might have been heard at St Mark's in Venice around 1630 was the theme of this concert by the early music ensemble I Fagiolini. The austere lines of Bristol's St George's could not be further from the splendour of Venice's Byzantine basilica, but it required only a lively drumbeat, the distinctive fanfare of cornett and sackbut, the flourish of chamber organ and a processional to transport the imagination. The strategic placing of singers and instrumentalists in parts of the venue's high gallery further opened up the aural perspectives, evoking the brilliant spatial effects that are characteristic of the Venetian early baroque style.

Any celebration of St Mark's is also a celebration of the presiding genius of Claudio Monteverdi. In this reconstruction, I Fagiolini's director Robert Hollingsworth built the evening around five Monteverdi psalm-settings. With their plainchant antiphon (or more elaborate substitute) and highly individual voice treatments, each of these made its own vivid statement, but it was the inclusion of other Venetian compositions that added a dimension here. Thus the virtuosic cornett flourishes of Giovanni Bassano's Benedicta Sit Sancta Trinitas, nonchalantly played by Fiona Russell, set in sharp relief the vocal agility and expressivity of soprano Anna Crookes in the solo setting Confiteor Tibi.

Crookes was the only female singer, with the more blatant sound of male falsettists contributing to I Fagiolini's bright vocal colour. Yet Hollingsworth's marrying of the delicate sounds of theorbos, two baroque violins and organs with the muted brightness of the English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble was a model of clarity.

The music of Giovanni Gabrieli, pioneer of the glorious polychoral effects that Monteverdi inherited at St Mark's, was reserved for the evening's climax. The performance of his 14-part Magnificat was simply magnificent.