For a number of years, Princeton Singers has enjoyed a successful collaborative relationship with the Princeton University Art Museum, performing a cappella sacred choral music surrounded by the iconic paintings and statues of the Museum’s Medieval chapel. This past Saturday night, the 16 voice professional vocal ensemble presented a double-header — a concert of unaccompanied works centered on the theme “As the Lily Among the Thorns,” performed twice during the evening to two different audiences. Artistic Director and Conductor Steven Sametz well researched the eight pieces from five centuries to find the “Lily” in the music, composers, or circumstances in which the work was written.

The echoing space of the Medieval chapel lent itself well to both the impeccably-tuned complex harmonies and the smooth contrapuntal passages of the sacred music of Europe, Russia, and America. Opening with a motet by 16th-century English composer William Byrd, The Singers sang with clean lines and well-tapered phrases. This is a chorus which has always had a solid bass section, and when the basses joined the choral texture, the resulting ensemble sound completely filled the chapel. Dr. Sametz provided commentary to each piece, noting in the case of the Byrd piece, that the “Lily” and “Thorn” were in the backstory of the work’s alleged composition in honor of the martyred English priest Edmund Campion. The Singers found several different styles and tempi within the music, allowing the sound to fully blossom most toward the end of the piece.

In programming this concert, Dr. Sametz jumped centuries and countries, from Medieval France and Renaissance Italy to early America, ending with a survey of the music of Russia. Antoine Brumel’s setting of “as the lily among the thorns” (Sicut lilium inter spinas) was more closely related to the same text set by Renaissance master Palestrina, and in both works the sopranos of Princeton Singers sang with a pure sound, especially in the higher register. The Singers performed Palestrina’s setting without the higher soprano and mezzo voices, placing two altos above a rich underpinning of male voices. The melodic lines wove well through the ensemble, as the chapel space complemented the ebb and flow of the dynamics. American composer William Billings’ setting “I am the Rose of Sharon” displayed a spirited raw rhythmic drive, particularly well handled by the men’s sections of the chorus. Diction was especially crisp in the space of the chapel, the ensemble tapered phrase endings well and the singers well captured the vocal energy of a new America in the late 18th century.

The Russian works on the program were particularly suitable for the chapel space, and the singers successfully showed an affinity for the dark and low choral sound. As a teaser, the ensemble performed two selections from their upcoming performance of Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil which were full of dramatic Russian sound, tempered with the joy of well-tuned major chords. In the first selection from All-Night Vigil, a setting of the “Magnificat,” the ethereal refrain of the cherubim was set in a more complicated style as the piece went on, with the group well handling the changing choral timbres.

The closing work on the program was a setting of the “Great Doxology,” the most substantial portion of the Vigil, and the music was well led by mezzo-soprano soloist Sage Lutton. The women’s presentations of the text were chipper, and the entire ensemble showed attentiveness to varying liturgical moods within the prayer. The Singers closed the concert well with this plaintive prayer, presented somewhat symbolically with the idea that the arts may be the “lily” in the “thorn” of world tumult, in both Rachmaninoff’s time and present day.

The Princeton Singers’ next concert will be on April 29 at Trinity Church in Princeton. The program will feature Rachmaninoff’s “All-Night Vigil.”

For information call (800) 846-SING or visit www.princetonsingers.org.