A few hundred Montrealers faced winter’s first cold snap on Dec. 14 to hear Venetian choral music performed by the Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal, a concert programmed for the Montreal Museum of Fine Art’s “Splendors of Venice” exhibition around the theme of choral music at San Marco. It is impossible to talk about this fine evening dedicated to another building, Saint Mark’s Basilica in Venice, without considering the space where we heard it — Bourgie Hall, a restored chapel among the more depressing rooms in the universe.
Mercifully, this veritable undertakers’ hall usually presents excellent music.