One can only imagine the amazement of indigenous South Americans at hearing the conquistadors sing choral polyphony for the first time. The inference of a brilliantly put-together concert by the 10-voice choir, Ex Cathedra, last Thursday was that the high art of the European Renaissance played a significant role in the conversion of the continent. Masses by Palestrina, Victoria and other polyphonic masters went out with the first ships and were sung at the earliest opportunity in new-built, Baroque stone churches. The colonisers knew the value of their culture and the effect their heaven-sent harmonies would have on alien, supposedly unsophisticated ears.