Tuesday 16 December 1997 at 8pm
Wednesday 17 December 1997 at 8pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Road, Kew
Subscription Series Concert No 5
PROGRAM
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina O magnum mysterium a 5
Tomás Luis de Victoria Quem vidistis, pastores a 6
Orlande de Lassus Videntes stellam a 5
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck Hodie Christus natus est a 5
Francis Poulenc Quatre motets pour le temps de Noël
Josquin Desprez Praeter rerum seriem a 6
Cipriano de Rore Missa Praeter rerum seriem a 7
| SOPRANO | ALTO | TENOR | BASS |
| Deborah Summerbell | Helena Simpson | Peter Neustupny | Andrew Williams |
| Carol Veldhoven | Kate Brian | Stuart Tennant | Tom Henry |
| Maria Pisani | Bernadette Ballard | Andrew Green | Thomas Drent |
| Helen Gagliano | Andrea Blansjaar | Philip Legge | Jerzy Kozlowski |
REVIEWS
Friday 19th of December 1997, The Age [Melbourne], page 4.
Ensemble ends the year on a high note
Joel Crotty
AROUND this time each year the Christmas carols are lurking everywhere – in school halls, street corners
and shopping complexes. In concert halls, Handel’s Messiah becomes a December fixture with interest
primarily centred around how many people stand up during the hallelujah chorus rather than for the oratorio
itself.
So when there is a program that has Christmas as a departure point for some rigorous intellectualism, it
becomes a musical Everest on a plateau of squawking insipidness.
The concert in question was Ensemble Gombert’s final event for the year. Not only did director John
O’Donnell find some fascinating musical links spanning generations and centuries, but was supported in his
efforts by some fine ensemble work from his group.
The first half of the program featured some of the musical giants of the 16th century: Palestrina, Victoria and
Lassus. Performing their work in one concert requires the singers to negotiate huge stylistic shifts.
A more impersonal approach is needed for Palestrina’s abstracted sense of design. The choir performed
Palestrina’s O magnum mysterium with an appropriate level of restraint. They did not imbue the lines with
unnecessary emotion, preferring to reveal the score’s wonderfully contrapuntal symmetry with smooth
flowing intent.
Conversely, scores by Victoria and Lassus are highly charged essays with impassioned use of chromatics to
create strong tonal coloring. In both Victoria’s Quem vidistis, pastores? and Lassus’s Videntus stellam, many
of the dramatic nuances were revealed with the required level of subtlety. On occasion, however, the
complexity of the Lassus created some problems with clarity.
For light relief, Sweelinck’s joyous Hodie Christus natus est was rendered with a deftness the score deserved.
These four, highly individual settings of traditional texts acted as a fascinating contrast to Poulenc’s Quatre
motets pour le temps de Noel, which concluded the first half of the concert.
Poulenc more or less used the same words as his predecessors and musically never strayed too far from the
textual meanings. His settings of O magnum . . . and Videntes . . . did disclose, however, a soprano line that
seemed too shallow to let loose the declarations the music required. None the less, the unusual twists and
turns scattered throughout the work were, as a rule, handled with care.
After the interval, O’Donnell rearranged the choir by dividing the soprano, alto and basses sections into
smaller components. This manoeuvre worked particularly well, as a greater blend of sound was the obvious
outcome. The reorganisation suited Josquin Desprez’s Praeter rerum seriem and the group, without a
noticeable weakness, presented the inner strength of the music with resolve.
A generation later, another Franco-Flemish composer, de Rore, composed a mass based on the Deprez motet.
This seven-part mass has a dense structure that can be a perilous journey in performance if the individual
lines are not allowed to breathe. Up to a point this occurred, with the basses and altos being the strong
foundations that enabled the other sections to maintain solidarity.
Joel Crotty/Courtesy of The Age
Friday 19th of December 1997, The Herald Sun [Melbourne], page 82.
Gombert scales festive heights
Johanna Selleck
ENSEMBLE Gombert joined in Melbourne’s yuletide celebrations with a concert entitled Christmas to
Candlemas.
The selection of renaissance motets and a mass made an exuberant and uplifting conclusion to this year’s
concert series.
In accord with 16th century choral practice, Gombert state in their performance notes that they aspire to the
sound of a “properly built organ”.
At times, they come so close to this ideal that the effect is uncanny.
So smoothly blended and finely tuned is the meld of voices that it glows with an inner resonance only ever
achieved by a careful combination of organ stops. Because of this the music soars to sublime heights without
the aid of externally imposed devices such as dynamics.
The color created by the ensemble makes cadence points radiate a spiritual significance that is quite divorced
from any artificially conceived sense of climax or repose.
In this way, the ensemble brought to life the four motets by Palestrina, Victoria, Lassus and Sweelinck which
opened the program.
Following this, in Poulenc’s Quatre Motets Pour Le Temps De Noel (which is based on the same four
motets), the unique renaissance sonorities were diluted and transformed by Poulenc’s highly idiomatic
language. His use of dynamic tapering, contrasts and dramatic climaxes betray a very different approach to
his predecessors, and one which drew a strong response from the choir.
For Poulenc, two of the most important aspects of his religious writing were fervor and humility.
Both of these qualities found expression in this evening’s performance.
Josquin Desprez’s Praeter Rerum Seriem and Cipriano de Rore’s Missa Praeter Rerum Seriem (based on the
same motet) met with a competent performance after interval, though not generally as inspired or stimulating
as the first half.
The tenors and basses formed a reliable bulwark here, while the pairs of sopranos and altos were less evenly
matched in strength.
The second group of each pair appeared more tentative and less rigorous in maintaining the vocal line,
resulting in a noticeable imbalance