Winter Festival, Christ Church, Spitalfields, London

The ghost of Christmas past has been banished from the Spitalfields area. In the 10 years since the Winter Festival of music was started, complementing the main Spitalfields festival in June each year, the changes to this part of London have been little short of jaw- dropping.

Nicholas Hawksmoor's imposing Christ Church, restored to its original glory in 2004, is the jewel in this new land of prosperity. But the approach to the church has changed beyond recognition since the summer: where the old market was a scene of dereliction, there now stand gleaming retail outlets specialising in Chinese herbs and limited-edition boxes of champagne.

The wealth of the City of London has crept right up to the doors of Christ Church. To its credit the Spitalfields Festival is trying to keep in touch with the poor and immigrant communities by adding other venues further afield, but Christ Church will remain its home.

Since the restoration Paul McCreesh and his Gabrieli Consort and Players have become regular visitors - good for the venue, that it can attract performers at an international level, and good for the musicians, too. Where else could they have performed a mostly intimate programme of Schütz's choral works so effectively?

The Historia der Geburt Jesu Christi is like a small- scale version of one of the Bach passions - a narration for tenor, interspersed with musical vignettes of the main characters in the Christmas story.

It is all very charming: the shepherds are accompanied by piping flutes, the chief priests by pompous sackbuts, and Herod (surprisingly) by a glorious fanfare of trumpets. The Finnish tenor Topi Lehtipuu was nicely expressive in the all- important Evangelist-style role and the other solo parts were sung by members of the Gabrieli Consort, some more successfully than others.

McCreesh has an uncanny knack for picking winners in the Baroque repertoire. The "sacred concerto" O bone Jesu, fili Mariae is a wonderful example of Schütz at his most expressive. The splendid Magnificat, vividly performed, made the roof of Christ Church resound, and now there is no worry that plaster will fall on the audience's heads.

Tel 020 7377 1362