IT IS a boom time for female composers, as they emerge from the shadows. Isabella Leonarda (1620-1704), one of the 17th century’s most prolific composers, was born to a noble family in Novara, north Italy, and entered an Ursuline convent in that city at the age of 16. Though she remained there all her life, she published 80 performable scores, not only the expected church music, but instrumental sonatas as well — she was the first woman to do so — each dedicated jointly to the Virgin and to a rich patron. Church fund-raising is evidently nothing new.

Her Littanie a 4 della Beata Vergine Maria formed part of the Nonsuch Singers’ programme “Brilliant Baroque” on 7 February. The work is typically Early Baroque in its changes of metre, tempo, and texture between florid soloistic passages and more homophonic choral treatment, and most agreeable in its sensitive setting of the words. There is always the vexed question who sang the male parts in a convent. Arguably, they were played on instruments. No problem here, as male and female voices wove and blended beautifully, as the composer intended. All the more credit to them, as some of the soloists stepped in at the last moment.

The Requiem-themed programme also took in Cavalli’s Salve Regina, and two works by the Italian-trained German Heinrich Schütz , his Musikalische Exequien and Deutsches Magnificat. Bach’s three motets Lobet den Herrn, Komm, Jesu, Komm, and Der Geist Hilft were full of the joy of a soul looking forward to eternity. It was all clearly and elegantly sung by the Nonsuch Singers, under the baton of Tom Bullard, ably underpinned by Greg Morris on chamber organ and by the cellist Catherine Rimer. It was very pleasing to be reminded of just how high the standard of non-professional choral singing can be.

Holy Trinity was completed in 1890 to an Arts and Crafts design by John Dando Sedding. With a striking red and white brick exterior, nine inches wider than St Paul’s Cathedral, and an east window by William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, its soaring interior filled with 19th-century art made a fitting display case for these jewels of the Baroque.