"All the singers are wonderful and they play a million instruments!" I heard a member of the audience enthuse to a friend following the afternoon lecture-demo presented by the Waverly Consort Sunday at the Museum of Fine Arts. Which, I suppose, is another way of saying with this group you get your money's worth.

Sunday that value came in threes--first the aforementioned lecture-demo, featuring U.C.-Santa Barbara music professor William F. Prizer, then the group's program booklet (perhaps the finest thing of its kind this side of the San Francisco Symphony's), and last but far from least a concert that evening kicking off the 1989-90 season of the Chamber Music Society of Salt Lake City.Chamber Music Society? Well, why not? Last year one of its more interesting offerings was a Liederabend featuring German baritone Udo Reinemann, a nice change of pace from the usual trios and quartets. And I think a case can be made that the madrigal, of which there were more than a few on this program, is in its purest form a kind of vocal chamber music.

Of course there are more than madrigals in the New York-based consort's repertoire, and here we got a fair sample of their breadth in what was billed as "Italia Mia: A Musical Tour of Italy in the Renaissance." Beginning with an early 15th-century Florentine istanpitta, the evening went on to embrace, city by city, sacred and secular music of Milan, Mantua, Ferrara, Venice, Naples and Rome. Included were celebratory pieces, songs and dances from the court, street songs and extracts from the intermedi, or interludes, from the festival attending the marriage of Ferdinand de' Medici in 1589.

To everything the Waverly brought its accustomed taste and total refinement, if a bit less gusto than one sometimes hears on its recordings. Balances among the six singers were well-nigh impeccable, with especially fine showings by soprano Rita Lilly, countertenor Larry Lipnik and baritone Paul Rowe (e.g., his sensitivity even in the more florid rreaches of the Fifth Intermedio of 1589, by Jacopo Peri). When not singing a cappella, they were additionally backed by the flavorful sonorities of the four-member instrumental complement under the group's director, lutenist Michael Jaffee.

The latter's work in particular was notable for its delicacy and restraint, maybe a bit too mych so in a group of northern Italian lute pieces, one of which, Simone Milinaro's Ballodetto "Il Conte Orlando," was transcribed by Respighi for his first set of "Ancient Airs and Dances." But as the tempo quickened, so did one's spirits, aided no end by the tangy contributions of recorders, bagpipes (courtesy of Adam Gilbert), dulcian, shawm (a kind of medeval oboe), harp and viols.

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Which is to say nearly everything was of a high caliber. Nonetheless I suspect the great names would have jumped out at one even without the program notes. For example Dyfay, here represented by his seraphic "Nuper rosarium flores," written for the consecration of Santa Maria del Fiore in 1436. Or Monteverdi, the intricate counterpoint of whose "Io me son giovinetta" was exposd with feather-light dexterity.

But room must also be found for Isaac, particularly his funeral lament for Lorenzo the Magnificent, with its telling exploitation of the lower registers; Josquin des Prez, the shapely vitality of whose "El grillo" was here communicated with unusual care; the Dutch-born Giaches de Wert (his "Vezzosi augeli," with its clever effects); the always enlivening Adriano Banchieri; and the happy fa-la-la-ing of Orazio Vecchi.

Indeed, humor reared its head frequently, whether via the doddering lotharios so vividly depicted in Adrian Willaert's "O bene mio" or in Prizer's pre-concert lecture, in which it was demonstrated how even Dufay was not above bringing his high-flown polyphony down to earth to highlight the name of his patron.

Would that could have been incorporated into the concert itself, as well as the accompanying introduction to some of the more arcane instruments. Still, after nearly 2 12 hours of the former I didn't hear anyone complaining of short measure.

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