AFTER a tour which has included remote parts of the Highlands and

Islands, the Scottish Early Music Consort finally arrived back in

Glasgow last night with a programme of music mostly by Monteverdi.

Colourful it certainly was, and a slickly executed programme, devised by

Kate Brown.

A group of seven on-stage musicians held it all together,

interspersing the vocal pieces with attractive instrumental sonatas by

Marini, Buonamente, and Gabrieli.

Lighting was sympathetic, while allowing for the necessary following

of the admirably presented texts, and the three singers -- Debra Stuart,

Henry Herford and James Meek -- gave splendid performances of a variety

of early seventeenth-century works.

I have to say though that I found some of the staging rather intrusive

and almost counter-productive. Debra Stuart's performance of Lanier's

Hero's Lament, for instance, was much less poignant than it ought to

have been because the singer had been directed to an excess of movement.

In the Monteverdi works there is, of course, plenty of drama in the

music, and you hardly need much posturing on stage, but the staging of

last night's highlight, Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, was

most moving. Herford was a splendid, lively narrator, Stuart rose

magnificently to the final ''Amico, hai vinto'' and Herford was a

suitably heroic Tancredi. (And for sheer infectious musical pleasure

there was the glorious Chiome d'oro of Monteverdi.)